RONDELET, Guillaume.

by Guillaume Rondelet

£2,350 · Offered by Sokol Books

.Rare first edition of this medical work on urine by Rondelet. An esteemed and successful physician, Guillaume Rondelet (1507-1566) was Regius professor of Medicine at the University of Montpellier, where he also served at chancellor towards the end of his life. He wrote various treatises on therapeutics and pharmacology, which are considered original contributions as he rarely cites other authors. Rondelet is also well-known as a naturalist for his De piscis marinibus , a leading treatise on marine animals and fish. . Tractatus de urinis is a concise but detailed treatise focusing on the examination of urine for diagnostic purposes. In the first chapter, Rondelet argues that the study of urine is certainly useful and necessary to understand illnesses, but also health, as well as to make diagnoses . After explaining the etymology of the word, Rondelet describes what urine is (a product of digestion, primarily produced in the stomach) and what kinds of illnesses can be detected through uroscopy: e.g. diseases of the liver and fevers, but not diseases affecting the heart. Many chapters are concerned with the different types of urine (e.g. tenuis , crassa , alba ), their colours and appearance (e.g. clear or cloudy ), the presence of sediments (e.g. arena = sand, or calculi) and other substances (e.g. blood), and how they can be linked to different diseases. At the end is a curious addition, titled The story of Didymus Obrecht , in which Obrecht himself, a physician of Strasbour

• Binding: Hardcover

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.