Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 456

JOHANN REMMELIN (1583-1632) Catoptrum microcosmicum. Typis Davidis Francki 1619 [2] 25 (misnumbered 27) [1] pp., 3 plates. 48 cm.

Remmelin received the master of arts degree in philosophy at Tübingen in 1604 and then relocated to Basel where he received a doctorate in medicine and philosophy in 1607. He became city physician at Ulm but departed in 1617 after a quarrel with the city council regarding the use of drugs by the city pharmacist. He served for a time as city physician at Schorndorf and moved to Augsburg as plague physician in 1628. He was banished from Augsburg because of his religious views and returned to Ulm, but was restored to his Augsburg post in late 1631. While physician at Ulm, Remmelin decided to publish a complete anatomy of the human body with plates designed to contain a series of superimposed flaps to illustrate the internal organs of various parts of the body. Some of his friends acquired the manuscript and drawings and published the work without Remmelin's approval in 1613. Remmelin then published the present edition in 1619. This was the first anatomical atlas to make extensive use of the flap method to depict the structure of the body. Vesalius had made this method an option for readers of his Epitome (see No. 291) and Bartisch had included two plates with flaps in his Ophthalmodouleia (see No. 369) during the preceding century. The recto of the beautifully engraved title page contained a number of allegorical scenes and the verso a fine portrait of Remmelin. Only three plates were used in the book and the figures are all modestly draped with nearly 120 flaps which can be lifted to display successive layers of anatomical structures. The first of the three plates depicted the bodies of a male and female together with the trunk of a pregnant woman, all surrounded by various organs of the body and allegorical scenes. The second plate depicted a man, and the third a woman. The artist was Lucas Kilian (1579-1637) who had studied in Italy and was one of Augsburg's most accomplished engravers. The accompanying Latin text was a mixture of anatomy, physiology, and theology. It was not a good source for anatomical instruction and clearly was intended for lay persons interested in better understanding the human body. Nonetheless, Remmelin's work was very well received and later translated into German, French, Dutch, and English.

See Related Record(s): 291 369

Cited references: Choulant-Frank, p. 232; Cushing R100; Waller 7884; Wellcome 5418

Gift of John Martin, M.D.