Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 384

PROSPER ALPINI (1553-1617) De medicina Aegyptiorum. Apud viduam Gulielmi Pelé, & Joannem Duval 1646 [xi] 150 [25] 39 [1] ll., illus. 22.2 cm.

Alpini, an Italian physician and botanist, graduated from Padua and traveled through Greece, Crete, and Egypt from 1580 to 1583. Following his travels, he returned to Padua where he remained as professor of botany and director of the botanical garden until his death. This work, first published in 1591, was one of several major books that resulted from his travels and is a comprehensive account of medicine as it was practiced in Egypt. Following Alpini's work is Jakob de Bondt's (see No. 463) De medicina Indorum. The work contains an account of the various tropical diseases Bondt treated and has been regarded as one of the first authoritative works on such diseases. In it are the first modern descriptions of beri-beri and cholera.

See Related Record(s): 385 463

Cited references: Cushing A146 (1645 ed.); Durling 178 (1st ed., 1591); Garrison-Morton 6468 (1st ed.); Osler 1796 (1st ed.); Waller 12509 (1st ed.); Wellcome 232 (1st ed.)

Gift of John Martin, M.D.