An Interactive Annotated World Bibliography of Printed and Digital Works in the History of Medicine and the Life Sciences from Circa 2000 BCE to 2024 by Fielding H. Garrison (1870-1935), Leslie T. Morton (1907-2004), and Jeremy M. Norman (1945- ) Traditionally Known as “Garrison-Morton”

16061 entries, 14144 authors and 1947 subjects. Updated: November 17, 2024

Browse by Publication Year 1580–1589

33 entries
  • 13731

Les statutz et ordonnances royalles faictes par les roys de France, sur l'estat de barbier-chirurgien part tout le royaume de France, et confirmé par le roy Henry III de ce nom, roy de France et de Pologne [Mai 1575-13 août 1578].

Paris: Jehan de Percontal, escuier valet de chambre du roy et premier barbier de Sa Majesté, 1580.

The first regulations for barber surgeons published in France.  https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb338125216




Subjects: LAW and Medicine & the Life Sciences, SURGERY: General › Barber Surgeons, Manuals for
  • 56

Medici antique Graeci: Aretaeus, Palladius, Ruffus, Theophilus: Physici & chirurgi. Partim nunquam, partim antea, sed nunc auctiores editi. Omnes a Junio Paulo Crasso Patavino Latio donati. Quibus accesserunt Stephanus Athen & ipsius Crassi Quaestiones medicae & naturales.

Basel: ex officina Petri Pernae, 1581.

An anthology of ancient Greek and more recent medical texts edited by Crassi. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.



Subjects: ANCIENT MEDICINE › Greece, Compilations and Anthologies of Medicine
  • 6236

Traitte nouveau de l’hysterotomotokie, ou enfantement caesarien.

Paris: Denys du Val, 1581.

Rousset records 15 successful Caesarean sections carried out by various persons during the preceding 80 years.



Subjects: OBSTETRICS & GYNECOLOGY › OBSTETRICS › Caesarian Section
  • 3668.3

Recherche de la vraye anathomie des dents, nature et propriété d’icelles.

Lyon: Benoist Rigaud, 1582.

The first French book on dentistry.



Subjects: DENTISTRY
  • 7327

Aigentlich Beschreibung der Raiss, so er vor diser Zeit gegen Auffgang inn die Morgenländer, fürnemlich Syriam, Iudaeam, Arabiam, Mesopotamiam, Babyloniam, Assyriam, Armeniam etc....

Lauingen, Germany: Leonhart Reinmichel, 1582.

Rauwolf provided the first modern descriptions of the flora of the area east of the Levantine coast. He was also the first to describe the riparian flora of the Euphrates, and the first European to publish an account of the preparation and drinking of coffee. Charles Plumier named the tropical plant genus Rauwolfia in his honor. A member of this genus Rauvolfia serpentina s. lat. (East Indian snake root) contains alkaloids including reserpine, used in the treatment of hypertension and schizophrenia.  

The first edition of Rauwolf's book contained three books and was unillustrated except for three woodcut vignettes showing Rauwolf in different stages of his journey. For the third edition of 1583 Rauwolf added a fourth book containing 42 woodcut illustrations of plants. Digital facsimile of the 1582 edition from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: ANCIENT MEDICINE › Mesopotamia, BOTANY › Botanical Illustration, CARDIOLOGY › CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE › Hypertension (High Blood Pressure), COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › Armenia, COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › Babylonia & Assyria, COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › Israel, COUNTRIES, CONTINENTS AND REGIONS › Syria, PHARMACOLOGY › PHARMACEUTICALS › Botanic Sources of Single Component Drugs › Coffee, PHARMACOLOGY › PHARMACEUTICALS › Botanic Sources of Single Component Drugs › Rauvolfia serpentina, PHARMACOLOGY › PHARMACEUTICALS › Botanic Sources of Single Component Drugs › Rauvolfia serpentina › Reserpine, PSYCHIATRY › Psychopharmacology, VOYAGES & Travels by Physicians, Surgeons & Scientists
  • 7565

Aliquot notae in Garciae aromatum historiam. Eiusdem descriptiones nonnullarum stirpium, & aliarum exoticarum rerum, que à generoso viro Franciso Drake quite Anglo, & his obseruatae sunt, qui eum in long illa nauigatione, qu proximis annis vniuersum orbem circumiuits ....

Antwerp: Christophe Plantin, 1582.

Botany of the circumnavigation of Sir Francis Drake.  Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: BOTANY, VOYAGES & Travels by Physicians, Surgeons & Scientists
  • 5817

̓Oφθαλμоδоύλεια das ist, Augendienst.

Dresden: Matthes Stöckel, 1583.

In this treatise on ophthalmic surgery Bartisch, who limited his practice to ophthalmology and hernia repair, left the first extensively illustrated account of any surgical specialty. Bartisch was a skilful operator and the first to practice the extirpation of the bulbus in cancer of the eye. The illustrations in his book form a comprehensive pictorial record of Renaissance eye-surgery; some of the woodcuts show the parts of the eye in various layers as they are viewed in dissection by means of movable anatomical flaps. This is one of the earliest uses of movable flaps to illustrate a medical book. Facsimile reprints, Folkstone, 1966, and Hannover, 1983.

A second edition of Bartisch's book, published in reduced format (quarto rather than the small folio of the first edition) was issued in Nuremberg, 1686, suggesting that the science may not advanced much in 100 years. The second edition is scarcer than the first.
English translation of the first edition by Donald L. Blanchard, reproducing all the woodcuts in color from a hand-colored copy, entitled Ophthalmodouleia. That is the service of the eyes (Ostende: Wayenborgh, 1996).



Subjects: OPHTHALMOLOGY › Anatomy of the Eye & Orbit, OPHTHALMOLOGY › Ocular Surgery & Procedures, Renaissance Medicine, SURGERY: General › Hernia
  • 8940

De plantis libri XVI.

Florence: Georgio Marescotti, 1583.

Cesalpino developed the first scientific classification system for flowering plants.

"Unlike the "herbals" of that period, it contains no illustrations. The first section, including thirty pages of the work, is the part of most importance for botany in general. From the beginning of the 17th century up to the present day botanists have agreed in the opinion that Cesalpino in this work, in which he took Aristotle for his guide, laid the foundation of the morphology and physiology of plants and produced the first scientific classification of flowering plants. Three things, above all, give the book the stamp of individuality: the large number of original, acute observations, especially on flowers, fruits, and seeds, made, moreover, before the invention of the microscope, the selection of the organs of fructification for the foundation of his botanical system; finally, the ingenious and at the same time strictly philosophical handling of the rich material gathered by observation. Cesalpino issued a publication supplementary to this work, entitled Appendix ad libros de plantis et quaestiones peripateticas (1603).

"Cesalpino is also famous in the history of botany as one of the first botanists to make an herbarium; one of the oldest herbaria still in existence is that which he arranged about 1550–60 for Bishop Alfonso Tornabono. After many changes of fortune the herbarium is now in the Museo di Storia Naturale di Firenze at Florence. It consists of 260 folio pages arranged in three volumes bound in red leather, and contains 768 species of plants. A work of some value for chemistry, mineralogy, and geology was issued by him under the title De metallicis libri tres (Rome, 1596). Some of its matter recalls the discoveries made at the end of the eighteenth century, as those of Antoine Lavoisier and René Just Haüy, it also shows a correct understanding of fossils.

"The Franciscan monk Charles Plumier gave the name of Cæsalpinia to a plant genus and Linnaeus retained it in his system. At the present day this genus includes approximately 150 species and belongs family Fabaceae, subfamily Cæsalpinioideae, which contains a large number of useful plants. Linnaeus in his writings often quotes his great predecessor in the science of botany and praises Cesalpino in the following lines:

Quisquis hic exstiterit primos concedat honores
Casalpine Tibi primaque certa dabit.

Digital facsimile from the Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.



Subjects: BOTANY, BOTANY › Classification / Systemization of Plants
  • 4917

The discoverie of witchcraft.

London: W. Brome, 1584.

Scot identified as mentally ill a large group of people who had hitherto been considered to be involved in witchcraft.



Subjects: PSYCHIATRY
  • 7555

De reconditis et praecipuis collectaneis ab honestissimo et solertissimo Francisco Calceolario Veronensi in Musaeo adservatis, Joannis Baptistae Olivi medici testificatio.

Venice: apud Hieronymum Discipulum, 1584.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: MUSEUMS, MUSEUMS › Natural History Museums / Wunderkammern
  • 9654

Discorsi intorno al sanguinar i corpi humani, il modo di ataccare le sanguisuche e ventose e far frittioni e vescicatorii con buoni et utili avertimenti.

Rome: Bartolomeo Bonafidino, 1584.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: THERAPEUTICS › Bloodletting
  • 12946

Observationes medicae de capite humano: Hoc est, exempla capitis morborum , causarum signorum, evetuum, curationum, ut singularia, sic abdita & monstrosa, ex clariss. medicorum, veterum simul & recentiorum scriptis.

Basel: Ex officina Frobeniana, 1584.

This work Schenck described his personal observations of language disorders, along with the observations of other physicians. He has been called a pioneer of neurolinguistics.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: NEUROSCIENCE › Neurolinguistics
  • 5818

Traité des maladies de l’oeil.

Paris: Charles Massé, 1585.

The first French work on ophthalmology. Guillemeau was a pupil and son-in-law of Ambroise Paré; his book was an epitome of the existing knowledge on the subject, chiefly from Greek and Arabian sources. English translation, London, [1587?]. See also No. 5820.



Subjects: OPHTHALMOLOGY
  • 7595

Anatomicae praelectiones.

Rome: Ex typographia Bartholomaei Bonfadini, & Titi Diani, 1585.

First description of a clear distinction between what is now known as gray and white matter in the central nervous system. The work also includes the first attempt to illustrate the brain in a sagittal view. The nine dramatic woodcuts in this work are strikingly original and not derived from Vesalius, as were most of the anatomical works in this period. The second issue of the sheets dated 1586 include an engraved portrait of Piccolomini on its title page that is very different from the portrait on the title page of the first issue of 1585, as well as a change in the dedicatee from Jacopo Boncompagni, Duke of Sora, to Pope Sixtus V, who ascended to the papacy in 1585. Digital facsimile of the 1586 issue from the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek at this link.



Subjects: ANATOMY › 16th Century, ANATOMY › Anatomical Illustration, ANATOMY › Neuroanatomy
  • 10959

Herbario nuovo...con figure, che rappresentano le vive piante, che nascondo in tutta Europa, & nell' Indie Orientali, & Occidentali.

Rome: Bartolomeo Bonafidino, 1585.

Durante, physician to Pope Sixtus V, published this encyclopedia of medicinal plants from Europe and the East and West Indies, illustrated with woodcuts by Leonardo Parasole. The work contains discussions of the habitat and medicinal uses of each species, in both Italian and Latin. It went through eleven editions in Italian, German and Spanish. Reprints appeared occasionally for over 130 years. 



Subjects: PHARMACOLOGY › PHARMACEUTICALS › Materia medica / Herbals / Herbal Medicines
  • 150

De humana physiognomonia libri IIII.

Vico Equense: I. Cacchium, 1586.

Della Porta preceded Lavater in attempting to estimate human character by the features. This is one of the first works on the ancient “science” of physiognomy to be extensively illustrated.



Subjects: ALTERNATIVE, Complimentary & Pseudomedicine › Physiognomy, ANTHROPOLOGY
  • 3417
  • 4011.2
  • 6377

De medica historia mirabili.

Mantua: per Fr. Osanam, 1586.

An early history of diseases, with extensive sections on ophthalmology (ff. 66-77) and urology (ff. 260-271). Lib. IV, Cap. iii, page 196 contains the first recorded case of gastric ulcer. Lib. VI. cap. iii contains the first description of angioneurotic edema (later described as Quincke's edema, No. 4081). Digital facsimile from the Medical Heritage Library, Internet Archive at this link.



Subjects: DERMATOLOGY › Specific Dermatoses, GASTROENTEROLOGY › Diseases of the Digestive System › Gastric / Duodenal Ulcer, OPHTHALMOLOGY , UROLOGY
  • 4918

A treatise of melancholie, containing the causes thereof.

London: T. Vautrollier, 1586.

First comprehensive description of depression in English. Bright also produced the first noteworthy geometrical system of shorthand, consisting of circles, half-circles, and straight lines (Characterie, London, 1588).



Subjects: PSYCHIATRY › Depression
  • 5819

A briefe treatise touching the preseruation of the eie sight.

London: R. Waldegrave, 1586.

This is the first separate work on ophthalmology printed in England.



Subjects: OPHTHALMOLOGY
  • 6012

Gynaeciorum sive de mulierum affectibus commentarii Graecorum, Latinorum, barbarorum, iam olim & nunc recens editorum: in tres tomos digesti, et necessariis passim imaginibus illustrati. 4 vols.

Basel: Thomas Guarinus, 15861588.

A hugely enlarged version of No. 6011, with texts in Greek as well as Latin. Digital facsimile of vol. 1 from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: OBSTETRICS & GYNECOLOGY › GYNECOLOGY, OBSTETRICS & GYNECOLOGY › OBSTETRICS
  • 10634

De venenis, et antidotis prolegomena: seu communia praecepta ad humanam vitam tuendam saluberrima; in quibus diffinitiva methodus venenorum proponitur per genera, ac differentias suas, partes, & passiones, praeservandi modum, & communia ad eorum curationem antidota complectens; de canis rabiosi morsu, et eius curatione.

Rome: Vincenzo Accolti, 1586.

Digital facsimile from cervantesvirtual.com at this link.



Subjects: TOXICOLOGY, TOXICOLOGY › Venoms
  • 13118

Historia generalis plantarum. In libros XVIII. per certas classes artificiose digesta, Haec, plusquam mille imaginibus plantarum locupletior superioribus, omnes propemodum quae ab antiquis scriptoribus Graecis, Latinis, Arabibus, nominantur : necnon eas quae in Orientis atque Occidentis partibus, ante seculum nostrum incognitis, repertae fuerunt, tibi exhibec. Habes etiam earundem plantarum peculiaria diuersis nationibus nomina: habes amplas descriptiones, è quibus singularum genus, formam, vbi crescant & quo tempore vigeant, natiuum temperamentum, vires denique in medicina proprias cognosces. Adiecti sunt Indices, non solùm Graeci et Latini, sed aliarum quoque linguarum, locupletissimi. 2 vols.

Lyon: Apud Guilielmum Rouvillium, 15861587.

The "most complete botanical compilation of its time and the first to descrbie much of the flora peculiar to the region around Lyons" (DSB).
Digital facsimile from Bibloteca digital, Real Jardín Botanico at this link.



Subjects: BOTANY
  • 5733.52

De decoratione liber…Additi nunc primum duo tractatus, alter, de varicibus, alter de reficiendo naso.

Frankfurt: apud Joannem Wechelum, 1587.

This work on cosmetics contains Tagliacozzi’s first publication on rhinoplasty – De reficiendo naso – a letter written to Mercuriale in response to inaccurate statements about Tagliacozzi's methods made by Mercuriale in De decoratione (1585).



Subjects: PLASTIC & RECONSTRUCTIVE SURGERY › Rhinoplasty
  • 7337

De humano foetu liber tertio editus, ac recognitus. Eiusdem anatomicarum observationum liber: ac De tumoribus secundum locos affectos liber nunc primum editi.

Venice: Jacobus Brechtanus, 1587.

First edition of Aranzi's Anatomicarum observationum published with the third edition of De humano foetu. In the Anatomicarum observationum Aranzi pointed out that the eye muscles arise from the margin of the optic cavity, not from the dura mater as was thought previously; and he described the extensor indicis proprius, obturator externus, genioglossus, coracobrachialis, and tensor fascia latae. Most importantly, he provided the first description of the hippocampus in the inferior horn of the lateral ventricle, which he referred to as the hippocampal ventricle, and the inferior extension of the lateral ventricular choroid plexus. He called the elevation in the floor of the inferior horn the “sea horse/hippocampus” or “white silkworm/bombycinus” and observed that it extends rostrally as the fornix. Overall, his description of the ventricular system was a clear improvement on that of Vesalius, who had also described the inferior horn. (Clarke and O’Malley 719-21; Larry W. Swanson). Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

 



Subjects: ANATOMY › 16th Century, ANATOMY › Neuroanatomy, EMBRYOLOGY, OBSTETRICS & GYNECOLOGY › OBSTETRICS, OPHTHALMOLOGY › Anatomy of the Eye & Orbit, PHYSIOLOGY › Fetal Physiology
  • 10660

De virtutibus et viciis cordis libri tres. Primus agit de virtutibus & functionibus cordis. Secundus de palpitatione cordis. Tertius de syncope.

Venice: Paulus Meietus, 1587.

The earliest separate treatise on cardiac physiology and pathology. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: CARDIOLOGY › CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE, CARDIOLOGY › CARDIOVASCULAR PHYSIOLOGY
  • 11101

Medicina universa, ex lectiones eius caeterisque opusculis, tum impressis, tum scriptis collecta, & in tres tomos nunc primum decenti ordine digesta, studio & opera Martini Weindrichii.

Frankfurt: Apud Andreae Wecheli heredes, 1587.

Montanus became a professor of practical medicine at Ferrara and at the University of Padua in 1539. His greatest innovation was to introduce clinical medicine into the curriculum as a way to integrate medical theory and practice. At Padua Montanus introduced autopsies as a means of acquiring anatomical data, and established the first permanent anatomical theater where Vesalius, Falloppio, Fabricius and others carried out studies. Students of Montanus included John Caius, Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: Collected Works: Opera Omnia, Renaissance Medicine
  • 2141

A prooved practise for all young chirurgians, concerning burnings with gunpowder, and woundes made with gunshot.

London: T. Orwyn for T. Cadman, 1588.

An interesting picture of Elizabethan surgery is given by William Clowes in this book on gunshot wounds. Clowes, the best surgical writer in Elizabethan times, was surgeon to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. In amputation he covered the stump with integument – an earlier form of the flap method. The Selected Writings of William Clowes were edited by F. N. L. Poynter, London, 1949.


  • 4160

Tratado de todas las enfermedades de los riñones, vexiga, y carnosidades de la verga, y urina.

Madrid: Fr. Sanchez, 1588.

First treatise on diseases of the urinary tract. Also describes the high operation for stone. Diaz is sometimes called the “Father of Urology”.



Subjects: UROLOGY
  • 6793

Oeconomia Hippocratis, aphabeti serie distincta. In qua dictionum apud Hippocratem omnium, praesertim obscuriorum, usus explicatur, etc.

Frankfurt: apud A. Wecheli heredes, 1588.

A Greek alphabetical dictionary of the vocabulary of the Hippocratic writings, based on an exhaustive investigation of all ancient medical texts.



Subjects: ANCIENT MEDICINE › Greece, Dictionaries, Biomedical › Lexicography, Biomedical
  • 3416
  • 8031

A most excellent and compendious method of curing woundes in the head, and in other partes of the body: With other precepts of the same arte, practised and written by that famous man Franciscus Arceus ... and translated into English by Iohn Read, chirurgion: Whereunto is added the exact cure of the caruncle, never before set foorth in the English toung: With a treatise of the fistulae in the fundament, and other places of the body, translated out of Iohannes Ardern: And also the discription of the emplaister called Dia Chalciteos, with its use and vertues: With an apt table for the better finding of the perticular matters, contayned in this present worke.

London: Imprinted by Thomas East, for Thomas Cadman, 1588, 1588.

This translation by surgeon John Read contains the first printing of John of Arderne's writings on his operation for the cure of anal fistula, written originally about 1376. At one time John of Arderne practiced at Newark-on-Trent; he moved to London in 1370. See the edition by Sir D’Arcy Power, Treatises of fistula in ano, haemorrhoids, and clysters, London, Kegan Paul, 1910. See also No. 5557. Digital facsimile of the 1910 edition from the Internet Archive at this link. Prefixed to the translation is A complaint of the abuses of the noble art of chirurgerie, written in verse by Read.

Read's translation also contains the first English translation of the Hippocratic Oath.



Subjects: Colon & Rectal Diseases & Surgery, Ethics, Biomedical, NEUROSURGERY, SURGERY: General
  • 13350

Hortus medicus et philosophicus: In quo plurimarum stirpium breves descriptiones, novae icones non paucae, indicationes locorum natalium, observationes de cultura earum peculiares, atque insuper nonnulla remedia euporista, nec non philologicae quadame continenteur. Item sylva Hercynia: sive catalgus plantarum sponte nascentium in montibus & locis plerisque.

Frankfurt am Main: Johann Feyerabend, 1588.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: BOTANY › Medical Botany
  • 13546

De medico hebraeo: Enarratio apologica ... Apposita sunt praeterea, non paucorum amplissimorum principum, quam multa decreta, in hebraeorum fauorem constituta. Annectuntur, quinetiam, in tractatus calce, nonnulla aurea dicta; ex priscorum hebraeorum monumentis excerpta; nunc primum, latinitate donata, & ad studiosorum vtilitatem, in lucem edita. Dauid de Pomis, medico physico hebraeo, auctore.

Venice: apud Ioannem Variscum, 1588.

De Pomis was a rabbi and physician. "... on account of the edict of Pius IV forbidding Jewish physicians to attend Christians (1555), he moved from town to town in Italy before he settled in 1569 in Venice, where he published the greater part of his works. Pius IV (1559–65) gave him permission to attend Christians, a concession revoked by Pius V (1565–72) and later restored by Pope Sixtus V (1585–90). In his booklet De Medico Hebraeo Enarratio Apologica (Venice, 1588) David de’ Pomis refutes the charges brought against Jews and Jewish physicians in particular by a bull of 1581 by Gregory XIII (1572–85). He stresses that according to the Bible and Talmud a Jewish physician must give help to every sufferer, and cites numerous instances of Jewish doctors who had distinguished themselves by their work and their loyalty. The volume ends with a selection of talmudic rules translated into Latin in order to prove that the Talmud should not be despised" (https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/pomi-s-de-x0027, accessed 9-2021). Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: Jews and Medicine, RELIGION & Medicine & the Life Sciences
  • 8466

Der Bücher und Schriften des Edlen, Hochgelehrten und Bewehrten Philosophi und Medici, Philipi Thephrasti Bombast von Hohen hem, Paracelsi genannt. Edited by Johannes Huser. 10 vols.

Basel: Conrad Waldkirch, 15891591.

First edition of Paracelsus's collected works. Though all the autographs of Paracelsus's writings were later lost, Huber, who was born shortly after Paracelsus's death, was able to collect a great number of autographs and early copies, so he was able to edit a complete edition of the medical and natural philosophic works of Paracelsus in 10 volumes. Huber's edition of Paracelsus's surgical writings (Chirurgische Bucher und Schriften) was issued after Huber's death, in Strasbourg in 1605. Links to facsimiles of the 10 vols. plus the 1605 edition at the Bayerische StaatsBibliothek from the Zurich Paracelsus Project at this link.



Subjects: Collected Works: Opera Omnia, OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH & MEDICINE › Miners' Diseases, PSYCHIATRY, SURGERY: General