Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 112

FRANCESCO PETRARCA (1304-1374) De remediis utriusque fortunae. Bernardinus de Misintis and Caesar Parmensis 1492 166 ll., woodcuts: 1 initial, printer's device. 31.3 cm.

Although remembered chiefly as a poet, Petrarch also wrote philosophical essays and engaged in extensive correspondence with leaders of the Church and of Italian political life. He was trained in civil law at Montpellier and Bologna and never received any formal medical education. Petrarch experienced three major injuries during his lifetime and also suffered from fevers for at least three decades so he had many occasions to be ministered to by physicians of his day. It was perhaps from this close contact with the medical profession that he developed his great animosity toward physicians, directed more against their professional ethics than their therapeutics. He had little faith in their ability to benefit the patient and believed that they sold their services under false pretences. De remediis utriusque fortunae is his longest prose work; it became very popular after the invention of printing and was published in at least seven languages during the sixteenth century. A lengthy and repetitious exposition of Petrarch's moral philosophy, the book is concerned with attitudes toward good fortune as well as reactions to various misfortunes including such illnesses as gout, scabies, plague, toothache, pains in the legs, blindness, speech and hearing loss, agues, stomach pains, madness, and poisons.

Cited references: Goff P 409; Hain-Copinger 12793; Wellcome 4928

Gift of John Martin, M.D.