Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 2344

ARISTOTLE, PSEUD. . [Aristotle’s Masterpiece] Aristotle's compleat master-piece, in three parts, displaying the secrets of nature in the generation of man, regularly digested into chapters and in sections, rendring it far more useful and easy than any yet extant, to which is added, A treasure of health; or, The family physician: being choice and approved remedies for all the several distempers incident to human bodies. London: The booksellers, 1723.. 15th edition. 138, 14 pages, 1 unnumbered folded leaf of plates : illustrations (woodcuts) ; (12mo); 15 cm.

Though this book is prominently credited to Aristotle (see no. 14 ff.) in its title, the contents almost definitely do not originate from him. It is most likely that the information within has been derived from many well-known books on midwifery and gynecology from the 17th and 18th centuries. These include Scot’s Liber Physiognomiae (see no. 84 ff.), Culpeper’s (see no. 505 ff.) Directory for Midwives, and Lemnius’s (see no. 258 ff.) Secret Miracles of Nature and A Discourse Touching Generation. Earlier versions of this text attributed authorship to William Salmon (see no. 654 ff.), but Aristotle’s Masterpiece does not describe new concepts and can be best characterized as a “hotchpotch”—a jumble of prior information from the field of midwifery—¬by Osler (p.176). Additionally, Fissell describes Masterpiece as “a bricolage of the most popular books on sex and reproduction then in circulation” in her article “Hairy Women and Naked Truths…” (2003). While the actual author or authors remain unknown, the choice to use the name and reputation of Aristotle supported the text’s credibility to its contemporary audience. Aristotle’s “one seed” theory is likely the source of this reputation, but another book of pseudo-Aristotelian origins, Aristotle’s Problems (1595), further cemented his apparent role as a “sex expert” with 17th century audiences when Masterpiece was first published in 1684. This edition includes a handwritten inscription on the verso folio of the foreword: “Elizabeth Scott…her book 1743.”

See Related Record(s): 14 84 505 258 654

Cited references: Osler 1846; Wellcome II, p. 56