HIPPOCRATES - GALEN. - "VITA BREVIS, ARS VERO LONGA"

Hippocratis Aphorismi, cum Galeni Commentariis Nicolao Leoniceno, interprete. 2 Parts (Second Part:) Galeni Ars Medicinalis Nicolao Leoniceno interprete.

Venetiis, (Colophon: Per Alovysium De Tortis), 1538. 16mo. Contemp. full flexible vellum with flaps. Lacks ties. Faint remains of handwritten title on spine. Binding somewhat rubbed. (31),304,(2 blank) a. (8),64 leaves. Endpapers a bit torn. Contemp. owners name on titlepage. Internally clean. Some 90 leaves have a wormtract in inner margin, occasionally shaving and loosing some letters.

An extremely scarce early edition of the "Aphorisms". Not in Choulant, not in Waller and Wellcome and not in British Museum Short-Title (Italy).

Hippocratic medicine was very successfull, "The proof of their success may be found in thtat for two millenia no better work was accomplished, and often worse was done. Hippocratis medicine traversed the centuries somewhat like Aristotelian Logic,; and if, since the nineteenth century, the errors of the physician have been seen to be more profound than those of the logician, it is because the domaine that he explored was much the more complex."(DSB VI, p.429).

The Hippocratic Oath has been taken in spirit if not in precise form by medical students for more than two thousand years. The Aphorisms, the best known work of the Hippocratic Collection, are probably genuinely Hippocratic, at least in part. They are here presented with the commentaries of Galen, both of which are in Latin translation. The well-known aphorism "Vita brevis, ars vero longa" (Life is short, but art is long) opens the book. (Heirs of Hippocrates No. 1).

Order-nr.: 43382