Lanfranc, the founder of French surgery, was a pupil of William of Salicet. He enjoyed a great reputation for his lecturing and bedside teaching. His Chirurgia magna was completed in 1296. According to Hirsch and others it was first published in Venice in 1490, but no copy of this edition has been traced. Above is a French translation; an English version appeared in 1565. Lanfranc was the first surgeon to describe cerebral concussion and to distinguish between simple hypertrophy and cancer of the breast. He wrote a Chirurgia parva about 1295.  ISTC No. il00051000. Very rare. The ISTC cites only 3 copies: Paris BnF, Torino N, New York, NYAM.

This is a Latin translation from a Hebrew version dating from 1280. Avenzoar, the greatest Muslim physician of the Western Caliphate, described the itch-mite, Sarcoptes scabiei, serous pericarditis, mediastinal abscess, pharyngeal paralysis and otitis media. He was the first to attempt total extirpation of the uterus. He anticipated the modern stomach tube and advocated rectal feeding. He carefully described, but did not perform, lithotomy, and was apparently the first to mention a lithotrite. Avenzoar's text was translated from the Arabic by Jacob probably into the Venetian vernacular, from which it was translated into Latin by Paduan physician Paravicius in 1281. ISTC no. ia01408000. Digital facsimile from the Bayerische StaatsBibliothek at this link.

This edition, chronologically the fourth printed, of Albertus's commentaries on various works of Aristotle, contains the first printed illustration of the brain, showing in profile the three-cell theory of brain function in a schematic way that was based very loosely on Galen, but initially formalized in the late 4^th century by the Christian theologian, Nemesius, Bishop of Emesa. "In his book, De Natura Hominis (On the Nature of Man), Nemesius postulated that all faculties of the immaterial soul are located entirely in the ventricles, with each of them being responsible for a specific quality based on Aristotle’s classification of these functions. Essentially Nemesius attributed sensation and the unification of images (common sense) to the refinement of psychic pneuma (animal spirits) in our lateral ventricles (together the first ventricle), cognition to our third ventricle (the second ventricle), and memory to our fourth ventricle (the third ventricle). This exceptionally complex topic was greatly elaborated over the centuries, and crudely illustrated in certain manuscripts before the version printed in 1490. The relevant manuscript and early printed versions are thoroughly illustrated by Clarke & Dewhurst (1996)" (communication from Larry W. Swanson). ISTC no. ia00296000.

The first printed edition of Galen's writings pulled together texts from numerous translators. ISTC No. ig00037000. Digital facsimile from the Bayerische StaatsBibliothek at this link.

Though it's exact publication date is uncertain, this is the first medical publication issued in English by William Caxton, the first English printer, who set up the first English press in Westminster Abbey. Only two copies of the original edition are recorded: Oxford, Bodleian Library and New York, The Morgan Library and Museum. ISTC No. ig00328000. Facsimile edition, London: Blades East & Blades, 1858, limited to 55 copies.

A collection of short medical treatises which circulated widely in manuscript, some as early as the 13th century, and was perhaps attributed by the printers to its former owner, Johannes von Kirchheim, a professor of medicine in Vienna about 1460. His name was probably corrupted by the printers to Ketham. The book includes the first printed anatomic illustrations of any kind. Singer’s edition, which includes his translation of the commentary by Karl Sudhoff, was published at Milan, 1924. The first English translation of Ketham’s text by Luke Demaitre, republishing Singer’s translation of Sudhoff’s commentary, was published at Birmingham by The Classics of Medicine Library, 1988. That edition reproduced the woodcuts in color from an original hand-colored copy at Yale’s Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, together with selected illustrations from the Italian 1493 edition, with Singer’s commentary. ISTC no. ik00013000. Digital facsimile  from Harvard University Libraries at this link.

An early work on memory disorders and aids to memory. ISTC no. ia00210000. Digital facsimile from the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek at this link.

First edition of an herbal and general treatise on natural history which became very popular; based on the unusually large number of surviving copies in institutions it must have also been a bestseller. The plant illustrations in this work are for the most part copied from the Gart der Gesundheit (No. 1796). 150 illustrations of animals and minerais are new or borrowed from models in manuscripts or playing cards, etc. Despite its quaint and often fanciful woodcuts of animals and plants, it stimulated other more scientific treatises on botany and zoology. Available in facsimile in W. L. Schreiber’s Die Krauterbücher des XV und XVI Jahrhunderts, Munich, 1924. An English translation of circa 1521 (S.T.C. 22367) was reprinted London, Quaritch, 1954, edited by N. Hudson. ISTC No. ih00486000. Digital facsimile from the Bayerisches Staatsbibliothek at this link. The ISTC lists 7 editions, including a French translation.

Written in 1429, this didactic poem is the first known text to be devoted to the normal physiology and common illnesses of children. It was written in old Swabian, and its author was a monk. The poem was probably intended to be chanted, as an aid to memorization, and as a way of spreading of information among those who were not able to read and write; but, of course, in book form it had to be read. For details of this rare work, see J. Ruhräh, Pediatrics of the past, New York, 1925, pp. 465-86.  Digital facsimile from Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel at this link.  ISTC No. ih00013000.

ISTC No. ih54000.

A popular guide to healthy living, dealing with such topics as sleep, exercise, sex, hygiene, drugs, and especially diet, with an emphasis on the qualities and properties of  foods, including their cooking and preparation. It also includes information about drinking, drinks and especially wines. The work is considered a synthesis of little known Jewish and Arabic teachings about food with information from more common western texts. ISTC No. ig00111000. Digital facsimile from Bayerische StaatsBibliothek at this link.

The first printed medical book of an Englishman. John of Gaddesden was a prebendary of St. Paul’s Cathedral and physician to Edward II. The work, to quote Garrison, “consists mainly of Arabist quackeries and countryside superstitions”; it was compiled about 1314. For information regarding the various printed editions, see the article by Dock in Janus (Amsterdam), 1907, 51, 425. See also H. P. Cholmeley, John of Gaddesden and the Rosa medicinae, Oxford, 1912. ISTC No. ij00326000.

A correction of the botanical errors of Pliny. Remembering the times in which Leoniceno lived, Garrison considers this work “a feat of the rarest intellectual courage”. It was accepted by later botanists and thus made possible scientific description of the materia medica. The second edition, edited by Ludovico Bonaccioli, [Ferrara: per Joannem Maciochium, 1509,] contains the first printings of Leoniceno’s responses to his critics in 1493, 1503, and 1507. These responses apparently circulated in manuscript until 1509. ISTC No. il00168000. Digital facsimile from the Bayerisches Staatsbibliothek at this link. Digital facsimile of the 1509 edition from Google Books at this link.

The Almaleki, or Liber regius, of Haly Abbas was the leading treatise on medicine for a hundred years, when it was displaced by Avicenna’s Canon. This was the only edition printed in the 15th century.  ISTC No. ih00003000. Digital facsimile from the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek at this link.

One of the most popular medical books of the Middle Ages; first written about 1260. After its first printing about 1492 it was reprinted many times in the next 100 years. "Petrus Hispanus was the only practicing physician ever to become Pope (1276-77). By all accounts he was an interim choice when rival French and Italian Cardinals could not elect one of their own nationality. Although not clearly responsible for any major political actions by the Church, Petrus was famous for several centuries after his death because of his secular writings - a text on logic (Summulae logicales) and a handbook on medicine (Thesaurus pauperum). The latter is noteworthy because it contains two sections on coitus - how to enhance the sexual act and how to subdue sexual urges. Promoting coitus seems an odd topic for a medieval Catholic cleric-writer and raises the question as to whether the first section may have been added by a later copyist or editor, but an examination of a very early manuscript of the Thesaurus gives assurance that the two sexual sections were written by Petrus, probably around 1270." (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24585747). ISTC no. ij00242000. Digital facsimile from Biblioteca Corsiniana, Roma (BEIC) at this link.

Compiled in the years, 1424-1426, from Greek, Arabic and Latin works on medicine and nature. "Although Ardoini quotes previous authors at great length, his work is no mere compilation, since he does not hesitate to disagree with such medical authorities as Peter of Abano and Gentile da Foligno, and refers to his own medical experience or observation of nature at Venice and to what fisherman or collectors of herbs have told him. He also seems to have known Arabic, and his occasional practice of giving the names of herbs in several Italian dialects is of some linguistic value" (Thorndike). ISTC No: ia00950000. Digital facsimile from BnF Gallica at this link.

This Italian translation contains an entirely new and more extensive series of woodcuts and additional text. The dramatically improved and more realistic illustrations, which were reproduced in the numerous later editions, are by an unknown artist, about whom there has been much speculation. He was certainly close to the school of Giovanni Bellini. The dissection scene appears in color only in this edition and is one of the first three known examples of color printing, its four colors having been applied by means of stencils. Facsimile edition with extensive commentary by Charles Singer, 2 vols., Milan, 1925. 

In the woodcuts prepared for the Italian edition we see the first evidence of the transition from medieval to modern anatomical illustration. In the 1491 edition, the woodcut of the female viscera—like those of the Zodiac Man, Bloodletting Man, Wound-Man, etc.—was derived from the traditional non-representational squatting figure found in medieval medical manuscripts. However, the illustrations for the Italian edition "included an entirely redesigned figure showing female anatomy. . . . The scholastic figure from 1491 must have irritated the eyes of the artistic Venetians to such a degree that they immediately abandoned it. After this the female figure actually sits in an armchair, so that the traditional [squatting] position corresponds to a real situation" (Herrlinger, History of Anatomical Illustration, 66).  ISTC no. ik00017000. Digital facsimile from Biblioteca Palatina, Parma (BEIC) at this link.

The work was reprinted with a volume of commentary: Fasiculo de Medicina in Volgare, Venezia, Giovanni e Gregorio De Gregori, 1494. Vol. I: Facsimile dell'esemplare conservato presso la Biblioteca del Centro per la storia dell'Università di Padova. Vol. 2: Tiziana Pesenti, Il "Fasciculus medicinae" ovvero le metamorfosi del libro umanistico. (Treviso: Antilia, 2001).

Arcolani's Practica, published in this edition of Rhazes with Arcolani's commentary, includes the first documentation for the use of gold for filling diseased teeth. There are also several chapters on diseases of the teeth, and material on the anatomy and physiology of the teeth.  ISTC no. ir00180000. Digital facsimile from the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek at this link.

ISTC No. ih00540000

The first practical treatise on medical ethics. "Following opening remarks on the ideal conduct of the physician, and his duties towards his patients, their relatives, and his own colleagues while avoiding the perverse intentions of society in general, Zerbis systematically discusses six key areas in which the physician must seek to preserve himself from danger: his nature, character, and physical appearance; his training; his attitude toward God; and his attitude toward himself, and toward his patient; his relation to those present in the sickroom, the women, his disciples, ordinary folk, and druggists; and finally, the image he presents to the world at large outside the sickroom" (NLM cataloguing of this title.)

See also Nos. 363.2 and 1589.1.  ISTC No. iz00025000. Digital facsimile from the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek at this link. 

The first obstetrical book printed in the vernacular. Facsimile edition, Munich, 1910. Ortoloff also wrote the first German pharmacopoeia. See No. 1794. ISTC No. io00113000. Digital facsimile from the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek at this link.

Between November 1495 and June 1498 scholar printer Aldus Manutius (Teobaldo Mannucci) of Venice issued the first edition in the original Greek of Aristotle's Opera omnia. The set appeared in five thick quarto or small folio volumes, often bound in six. Assembling all of the texts was a major challenge for Aldus and his associates, requiring the help of scholars in different countries, and yet during the publication process Greek texts of both the Poetics and On Rhetoric, remained elusive, so they were excluded from the set. The editio princeps of Aristotle appeared at the close of a century that had witnessed a strong revival in Greek and humanistic studies; it was the first major Greek prose text, or collection of texts, to be reintroduced to the Western world in its original language by means of the printing press, and its success launched Aldus's efforts to produce further editiones principes of other Greek authors. In addition to the Aristotelian works, the five volumes contained works by Aristotle's successor, the botanist Theophrastus, the commentator on Aristotle, Alexander of Aphrodisias, the neo-Platonic philosopher Porphyrius, and Philo of Alexandria (Philo Judaeus) along with the spurious De historia philosophia attributed to Galen. ISTC No.: ia00959000. Digital facsimiles of the whole set are available from the Bayerische StaatsBibliothek, vol. 1 at this link.

Grünpeck was first to record mixed primary lesions, multiple primary lesions, and to note the second incubation period of syphilis. A translation of the above is in Arch. Derm. Syph. (Chicago), 1930, 22, 430. Digital facsimile from Harvard University Libraries at this link. Harvard describes this as: "Commentary on Brant's poem, De pestilentiali scorra sive mala de Franzos, eulogium, which was first published in Sept. 1496. Cf. Sudhoff, K. Earliest printed lit. on syphilis, p. xxvii. Includes text of poem. Dedication dated Nov. 15, 1496. Printer identified in Voulliéme, E., Die Inkunabeln der K. Bibl. Berlin." ISTC NO. ig00516000. The same printer issued a German translation of this work in the same year:  ISTC No. ig00518000

This English translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus was made by John of Trevisa in 1398. Bibliographically it is of interest as being one of the earliest books printed in London, one of the finest of the 15th century, and the first book printed on paper made in England. See also On the properties of things. John Trevisa’s translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus’ De proprietatibus rerum. A critical text edited by M. C. Seymour, 2 vols., London, 1975.  ISTC No. ib00143000.

ISTC No. ih00542000.

An eyewitness account of the retreat from Italy of Charles VIII of France in 1495, written by a physician of Verona, who was chief surgeon of the Venetian troops in the campaign. Although the book is not written primarily from the medical standpoint, it exemplifies a physician’s eye for detail and provides information about health conditions and diseases prevailing in the camps of the French troops.

This is probably the first published narrative written by a physician that concerns military history and military medicine of the Renaissance. Notably, it was relatively current information, being published one year after the retreat.

ISTC No. ib00320400. Digital facsimile from Bayerische Staatsbibliothek at this link.

The best edition of the Opuscula of Rhazes, containing the second printing of the celebrated Liber ad Almansorem, not to be confused with Liber nonus ad Almansorem, as well as De aegritudine puerorum (No. 6313), and other works by Rhazes. This edition also contains the first edition of Rhazes’ De proprietatibus membrorum et nocumentis sexaginta animalium. 

The Liber ad Almansorem first appeared in its entirety in 1481 with 14 other titles, including the first printed edition of Hippocrates On Airs, Waters, and Places, a pioneering work in anthropology. When republished in 1497, additional works by Rhazes, Maimonides and Avenzoar were included for a total of 23 separate titles. (Works by Hippocrates, Mesue, and Maimonides also included here were previously published in 1489, a later edition of which was issued in 1500, and 1508.)  ISTC No. ir00176000. Digital facsimile from the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek at this ink. 

Serapion the Elder and Serapion the Younger were Syrian Christians who wrote in Arabic. Breviarum medicinae was an abridgement of the opinions of the Greek and Arabic physicians concerning diseases and their treatment. It also includes transcriptions from Alexander of Tralles, an author with whom few of the other Arabic writers seem to have been much acquainted.

Matthaeus Platearius, a physician from Salerno, is thought to have produced a twelfth-century Latin manuscript on medicinal herbs titled "Circa Instans" aka ("The Book of Simple Medicines"), later translated into French as "Le Livre des simples medecines." It was an alphabetic listing and textbook of simples that was based on Dioscorides "Vulgaris", which described the appearance, preparation, and uses of various drugs. Matthaeus Platearius and his brother Johannes were the sons of a female physician from the Salerno school who was married to Johannes Platearius I; it is possible that she was Trotula. ISTC No. is00466000. Digital facsimile from the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek at this link.

One of the earliest treatises on syphilis, and one of the few medical books printed by Aldus Manutius in the 15th century. Leoniceno included a good description of syphilitic hemiplegia. He believed that syphilis was known to classical writers. English translation in Major, Classic Descriptions of Disease, 3rd ed., 1945, p. 15.  ISTC No. il00165000. Digital facsimile from the Bayerisches StaatsBibliothek at this link.

The first important printed surgical treatise in German. It combines a compilation of the ancient and medieval authorities with Brunschwig’s own extensive experience. It contains the first detailed account of gunshot wounds in medical literature, and is notable for its woodcuts— some of the earliest specimens of medical illustration. It was reproduced in facsimile in 1911 (Munich), 1923 (Milan), and 1967 (Gertenbach). English translation, Southwark (London), 1525.  ISTC No. ib01225000 indicates that "Several variants are known; in one the colophon reads 'M.ccc.xcvii.' Sometimes found with the 'Anathomia', which GW (Anm. 2) suggests was an addition, not earlier than Dec. 1497, to the original edition, and which is also found independently." Digital facsimile from the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek at this link.

H. Goodman considers this treatise, written in verse, among the best of all works on the syphilis in the 15th and 16th centuries. Reprinted Salamanca, 1973. For English translation see Bull. Inst. Hist. Med., 1939, 7, 1129-39. An English translation was also published in London, 1870. ISTC No. il00286000.

The pharmacopeia of Florence was probably the second pharmacopeia published in print. It included a list of approved drugs and described various methods of preparing them for use, together with proper weights and measures needed for accurate compounding. ISTC No. ir001900600.

This late 15th century edition of the surgery of Guy de Chauliac also contained the first printed editions of various lesser-known medieval surgeries such as those by Bruno da Longoburgo and Leonardo Bertapaglia. It also also contained Recepta aque balnei de Porrecta by Bonventura Castelli. ISTC No. ig00558000. 

Digital facsimile from Biblioteca de Andalucía at this link.

The last section of this commentary on Aristotle is an illustrated summary of anatomy, the text of which was derived, with some modifications, from medieval manuscripts. The series of eleven woodcuts has been called “the first series of anatomical figures specially prepared for a printed book”.  ISTC No. p00539000.  Digital facsimile from Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel at this link.

Nicander was a Greek poet and physician. His Theriaca, in 958 hexameters, dealt with the symptoms and treatment of poisoning by the bites of poisonous animals; the Alexipharmaca considered intoxications through animal, vegetable, and mineral poisoning, and their suitable antidotes. Nicander was also the first writer to mention the medicinal use of the leech. The above work has a Greek text, and is one of the few medical incunabula issued by Aldus Manutius of Venice. A Latin translation appeared at Cologne in 1531. See Nicander: The Poems and Poetical Fragments edited by A. S. F. Gow and A. F. Scholfield.(Cambridge, 1953), and also P. K. Knoefel & M. C. Covi, A Hellenistic Treatise on Poisonous Animals (The "Theriaca" of Nicander of Colophon): A Contribution to the History of Toxicology (1991).

Nicander's works were first published in print by Aldus Manutius together with the first edition in Greek of Dioscorides, De materia medica, and two works on venoms by "Pseudo Dioscorides" ISTC No: id00260000. Digital facsimile from Bayerisches Staatsbibliothek at this link