AETIUS, Amidenus.

by Amidenus Aetius

£1,750 · Offered by Sokol Books

A good copy of this medical encyclopaedia by the Greek Aetius. This is the second edition (first 1542) of the Latin translation by Janus Cornarius (c. 1500-1558), Saxon humanist, philologist and friend of Erasmus. A native of Amida in Mesopotamia (modern Diyarbakır, Turkey), Aetius was a Greek medical writer who lived about the end of the fifth and beginning of the sixth century. Very little is known of his life: he studied at Alexandria at the most famous medical school of the time and lived in Byzantium, where he became court physician to the Emperor Justinian I. Highly regarded by Renaissance physicians, he is defined here by Cornarius as the greatest of medical writers. Aetius Tetrabiblos so called because it comprises four books, each divided into four parts is an extremely valuable and important medical treatise. In fact, it is a compilation from the writings of several authors, many from the great library at Alexandria, otherwise lost. In particular, we find the works of Ruphus of Ephesus and Leonides in surgery, Soranus and Philumenus in gynecology and obstetrics, but also Aetius own observations on diseases and treatments. An interesting feature of Aetius work is that of providing recipes for creating complex medical compounds composed of many ingredients, typical of the time. Among the most complicated concoctions, we find a plaster recommended for tumors, hard lumps and gout; among the most curious, there is one for contraception consisting of aloe, wallflower s

• Binding: Hardcover

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