Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 342

PIETRO PAOLO MAGNI (b. 1525) Discorsi . . . sopra il modo di sanguinare attaccar le sanguisughe, et le ventose, far le fregagioni, et vessicatorij a corpi humani. Jacomo Mascardi 1613 80 pp., 11 plates. 20.9 cm.

Bloodletting has been practiced for thousands of years and has been utilized in the attempt to cure almost every ailment known to mankind. Its popularity as a therapeutic technique has waxed and waned over the centuries and it has often been the focal point of great controversy. Phlebotomy reached its zenith during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and then began to decline as the principles of scientific medicine became firmly established. Today, bloodletting has nearly disappeared but is echoed in the development of plasmapheresis and is still recognized as a treatment for polycythemia and hemochromatosis. Magni, an Italian surgeon of Piacenza, was a practitioner of phlebotomy and wrote a treatise on this subject as well as on cautery (see No. 343). In this work, edited by Pietro Fetti (fl. 1600), he discusses the art of bleeding, attaching leeches, and using cupping glasses as practice in the late sixteenth century. The book's eleven copperplates are scenes which depict the many places on the human body which may be used for bloodletting. The engravings have been attributed to Adamo Ghisi Mantuano (1530-1585). The work was first published in 1584 and went through at least four editions, of which this is one of the least known and most rare.

See Related Record(s): 343

Cited references: Durling 2905 (1584 ed.); Waller 6142 (1584 ed.); Wellcome 3959 (1584 ed.)

Gift of John Martin, M.D.