Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 377.5

RODRIGO DE CASTRO (1541-1627) Medicus-politicus, sive, De officiis medico-politicis tractatus, quator distinctus libris : in quibus non solum bonorum medicorum mores ac virtutes exprimuntur, malorum verò fraudes & impostura deteguntur : verum etiam pleraque, alia circa novum hoc argumentum nulia atque jucunda exactissimè proponuntur. Ex Bibliopolio Frobeniano Anno 1614 [8], 277, [17] p. 20 cm (4to)

First edition of one of the earliest books on medical ethics and of further – and considerable – significance in development of medical jurisprudence. Castro’s book was devoted mainly to medical ethics – that is, the principles governing the practice of medicine – but it also contained chapters dealing with forensic medicine. “In 1614 one of the many brilliant Jewish refugee doctors from Portugal who are so characteristic of the period, Rodrigo a Castro…, published in Hamburg a treatise called Medicus politicus (The political doctor). The book contains many chapters on legal medicine, covering wounds, the signs of poisoning, virginity, impotence, and so forth – and examination of slaves, a procedure which in its content has been compared to a modern life insurance examination” (Burns, Legacies in law and medicine, 254 [corrected]). Castro was the most famous in a long line of Jewish physicians bearing the name Castro of Spanish and Portuguese descent. The first mention of the Castro family dates to the eleventh century. Rodrigo de Castro was born in Lisbon in 1546 and obtained a medical degree at Salamanca. The reintroduction of anti-Jewish Laws led to Castro’s removal from Hamburg, where he soon acquired an even greater reputation than he had enjoyed in Lisbon. “Rodrigo de Castro’s reputation was such that he was called upon to treat the King of Denmark, the Archbishop of Bremen, the Duke of Holstein,… and other princes and persons of distinction” (Fiedenwald, Jews and medicine, 2:450). Castro is best known for his De universa mulierum medicina and for this book on medical ethics.

Cited references: Garrison & Morton 1759; Waller 1821; Wellcome I #1364; NLM 17th c. #2291

John Martin M.D. Endowment