Ferri, Alfonso:

$4,500 · Offered by William Reese Company

DE LIGNI SANCTI MULTIPLICI MEDICINA, ET VINI EXHIBITIONE.... Second edition, with significant provenance, after the first published in Rome the year before, of this landmark treatise on the medicinal applications - including the treatment of syphilis - of the guaiacum tree, a species native to the Americas and newly introduced to Europe. De Ligni Sancti is one of the earliest medical works dedicated to guaiacum ("lignum sanctum," the holy wood), which was first described by Ulrich von Hutten in his De Guaiaci Medicina et Morbo Gallico (1519). Ferri describes the tree and where to find it, noting that "many of the newly discovered islands produce it" and recommending the variety growing in San José as preferable. The treatise provides instructions on its preparation for medical purposes: the bark of the tree is ground into powder and boiled to create a syrup-like infusion. At the beginning of the 16th century, this became a popular treatment for syphilis, which Ferri describes in detail, and offered an alternative to the highly toxic use of mercury treatments. In the book, however, Ferri lists and briefly describes many more illnesses or health concerns that can be cured with guaiacum, including headache, insomnia, memory loss, melancholy, vertigo, epilepsy, paralysis, bad breath, hernia, sterility, and ulcers.The most innovative section of the treatise is Ferri's introduction of a new method of preparing guaiacum, using wine instead of water. Explained towards the end of the

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