Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 228

ANTONIO MUSA BRASAVOLA (1500-1555) Examen omnium simplicium medicamentorum, quorum in officinis usus est. Apud Joannem et Franciscum Frellaeos 1537 [24] 542 (misnumbered 544) [15] pp. 15.5 cm.

Brasavola, like many physicians of his era, also held doctorates in law and theology and taught these subjects as well as medicine. He was a pupil of Niccolò Leoniceno (Leonicenus), a famous Italian medical humanist who also made an important translation of Hippocrates' Aphorisms (see No. 3). Brasavola served as personal physician to the Popes Paul III, Leo X, Clement VII, and Julius III; to Emperor Charles V, King Francis I, and King Henry VIII. He wrote some seventy books and articles, is said to have performed a large number of tracheotomies, and described over two hundred different kinds of syphilis. Among his many works were an authoritative concordance of Galen and this popular work on herbal medicine, first published in 1536, in which he introduced several new drugs into the pharmacopoeia. The work is in the form of a dialogue among Brasavola, an old apothecary, and an herbalist. It is a lengthy treatise and shows that, while he had made significant advances in presenting his material and his methods, he had not entirely succeeded in freeing himself from the traditional lore and superstitions of the past.

See Related Record(s): 3

Cited references: Durling 680; Garrison-Morton 1804 (1536 ed.); Waller 1420a (1544 ed.); Wellcome 1045