Milestones of Science Books

WOLFF, Caspar / MOSCHION.

Gynaeciorum, hoc est, de mulierum tum aliis, tum gravidarum, parientium & Puerperarum affectibus & morbis... / Moschionis Peri gynaikeion pathon [Greek for: De morbis mulicribus liber unus].

Basel: Thomas Guarinus, 1566.

1st Edition. Soft cover. Very Good. Item #003225

Two works in one volume. 4to (207 x 164 mm). [10] leaves, 868 columns, [22]; [8], 63 [1] pages. Signatures: [alpha]-[beta]⁴ [gamma]² a-z⁴ A-Z⁴ 2A-2L⁴, *⁴ [Alpha-Theta]⁴. Second work printed in Greek and Latin and with separate title and pagination, printer's woodcut device on titles and at end of first work, woodcut illustrations in text. Bound in contemporary flexible vellum with the spine titled in manuscript (vellum wrinkled, soiled and spotted and with the yapp edge plus about 1 cm of the upper cover cut away). Text little browned and occasionally spotted, first leaves dog-eared, minor paper defects and fraying of blank fore-margin of first 4 and final 2 leaves restored, a few insignificant dampstains at lower margin, text markings on 4 pages, repaired clean tear in gatherings z and A, 16 leaves with small holes costing a few letters recto-verso, which however does not impair legibility of text. Provenance: Dr. Francoise Moutier (engraved bookplate to front pastedown). Still very good copy in untouched binding. ----

Norman 2256; NLM/Durling 2252, 3320; Garrison-Morton 6011, 6136; Hoffmann II, 601; Waller 3897; Wellcome I, 4465. RARE FIRST EDITION of the first encyclopedia of gynecology and obstetrics, also containing the first edition of the work by Moschion, dating from the 6th century A.D., "the earliest text specifically for midwives, based on the teachings of Soranus, the greatest obstetrical writer of antiquity" (Garrison-Morton). Other texts in this collection are by Albucassis, Trotula, Rocheus, Bonaciolus, Cleopatra and Sylvius.
"Conrad Gesner gathered together the most important works on woman's diseases with the intent to publish them in a single volume, but he died before realizing his plan. He left the completion of the project to his literary executor Caspar Wolff, who added several sections on obstetrics and published the collection the year after Gesner's death. Gynaeciorum includes the editio princeps of Moschion's De mulierum passionibus liber; Moschion (fl. A.D. 500) abbreviated and translated the work of the Greek physician Soranus (d. A.D. 138), the first to specialize in gynecology and obstetrics. Composed ca. A.D. 580, Moschion's treatise presented Soranus's ideas in a popular catechism form, translated into Latin for the use of 'Latin matrons and obstetricians unskilled in the Greek tongue.' It also contained illustrations of the female reproductive organs and of the fetus in utero that may have dated back to classical times. These illustrations, copied and recopied in later manuscripts, were adopted with little change by the obstetric writers of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries." (Norman 2256). Visit our website to see more images!

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