Brunfels, Otto | Catalogus illustrium medicorum, one of the earliest medical bibliographies

Brunfels, Otto

Catalogus illustrium medicorum, sive de primis medicinae scriptoribus. Strassburg: Johann Schott, 1530 [colophon dated 16 December 1529]

4to (207 x 156 mm). Title within woodcut border with portraits of famous medical figures, one large woodcut initial and tailpiece; some pale dampstaining, pages 9, 12 and 40 erroneously numbered 5, 22 and 44. Nineteenth-century blue wrappers, titled in ink manuscript to upper wrapper; a little worn. Green cloth clamshell box.

First edition and a fine association copy of one of the earliest medical bibliographies. The first publication of the German physician and botanist Otto Brunfels, the Catalogus records more than 300 medical authors and their works, arranged chronologically and supplemented by a subject index. The title-page, within an elaborate woodcut border, portrays twelve classical physicians, including Hippocrates, Galen, and Pliny. The work was completed shortly before Brunfels took his medical degree at Basel in 1532.

Uncommon.

REFERENCES

Adams B-2916; Durling 721 (imperfect); Wellcome I, 1097

PROVENANCE

Ludwig Choulant (1791–1861), Dresden physician and professor, author of Bibliotheca medico-historica (1842) (signature on title) — Martin Breslauer (Christie’s New York, 27 June 2005, "Bibliotheca Bibliographica Breslaueriana, Part III," lot 945)