Hutten, Ulrich von:

$27,500 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

VON DER WUNDERBARLICHE[N] ARTZNEY DES HOLTZ GUAIACU[M] GENANT. From the collection of R. David Parsons. The rare first German edition of Hutten's work on the discovery of the virtues of guaiacum officinale – a species of tree in the caltrop family, Zygophyllaceae, native to the Caribbean and the northern coast of South America – and its use of as a cure for syphilis, translated from the first Latin edition of the same year. Although works about syphilis were published even prior to 1500, instructions for curing the disease with the resin were not published until December 1518. Hutten's directions remained in print throughout the 1500s, with seventeen editions, translations, and reprints in other publications published in Latin, German, French, and English.John Alden notes in the preface to the first volume of European Americana that the "appearance in Europe of syphilis at the end of the 15th century seems, all too inexorably [from America], due to its transmission from Hispaniola, beginning with Columbus and his men....The consequences for the bibliographer will be readily evident, for as the armies of European powers traipsed across the Continent they spread this new scourge, reflected in the writings of the period....And even if it were at best dubiously American, treatment for it usually employed medicines derived from American sources, chiefly Guaiacum....introduced from the Caribbean." Today, the American origin of the disease is not disputed.He adds: "Not in fact witho

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