Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 460

THOMAS REINESIUS (1587-1667) Ad viros clariss[imos] D. Casp. Hofmannun, Christ. Ad. Rupertum . . . Epistolae. Sumtibus Johannis Scheibii 1660 [10] 681 [11] pp., front. (port.), illus., fold. tables. 20 cm.

Reinesius, town physician of Altenburg, Germany, was a scholar of some renown who carried on a considerable correspondence. These seventy-five letters to the physician Caspar Hofmann (1572-1648) and the historian Christoph Adam Rupert (1612-1647), both professors at the University of Altdorf, are mostly on topics outside the sphere of medicine. One of the letters, however, from Reinesius to Hofmann, dated Ascension Day, 1640, is of considerable interest for the early history of the reception of Harvey's theory of the circulation. Hofmann, one of the few contemporaries quoted in Harvey's De motu cordis, was visited by Harvey in 1636, when he demonstrated circulation to him. Even so, Hofmann continued to reject Harvey's theory. Reinesius' letter deals at length with Harvey's theory, its attack by Primerose and others, and with earlier theories.

Gift of John Martin, M.D.