Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 717.1

CHRISTOPH VON HELLWIG (1663-1721) Nosce te ipsum, vel, Anatomicum vivum, oder: Kurtz gefastes doch richtig gestelltes anatomisches Werck : worinnen die gantze Anatomie, nebst ihrer Eintheilung deutlich zu finden ... : nebst nöthigen Kupffern, wovon die Invention gantz sonderlich, indem man die Viscera heraus nehmen, nach denen Tabellen wohl betrachten, sich aus dem Tractätlein darbey informiren, und wiederum einsetzen kan ... / auff Begehren zum Druck befördert von L. Christoph Hellwig ... Zufinden bey Hieronymo Philippo Ritscheln, Buchhändl. : Gedruckt bey Georg Andreas Müllern 1716 First Edition [8], 20, [18] p., IV leaves of plates (2 folded) : ill., port. 34 cm. (fol.)

The German physician Hellwig (1663-1721) was an elusive personage who moved his practice repeatedly from city to city and who wrote or edited (but never dated) more than 40 medical and pharmaceutical books, many of which were dictionaries, household medical guides, and reports of unusual cases. The chief interest and charm of the present item obviously resides in its extraordinary plates, which are based upon those appearing in the Catoptrum Microcosmicum of Johann Remmelin (1588-1680), first printed in 1619. The Hellwig plates (the first of which is signed by J.H. Werner) have the same kind of delightful movable and superimposed bodily parts as Remmelin’s illustrations, which are described as follows in a 1675 English edition: “The skin, veins, nerves, muscles, bones, sinews and ligaments [of the body] are [herein] accurately delineated, and so disposed by pasting, as that each part of the said bodies both inward and outward are exactly represented.” Hellwig’s four plates depict, in turn, the skin, nerves, vessels, muscles, and bones; the female reproductive system; the male viscera and cranium; and the female viscera and cranium. The representations are remarkably complex. An arm on the first plate has no fewer than nine superimpositions, and the plate showing the male’s visceral organs has nine anatomical flaps or removable organs, some of which are themselves further elaborated with folds, extensions, tabs, and slots. (These statistics do not count the outermost flap of towel over the genitalia.) At least as noteworthy as this complexity is the condition of these fragile parts, which appear to be entirely undamaged here. This is almost certainly the first printing of Hellwig’s book, although priority cannot be determined absolutely.

See Related Record(s): 717

Cited references: Waller 4288

John Martin M.D. Endowment