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ALSARIO DELLA CROCE, Vincenzo.
De quaesitis per epistolam in arte medica Centuriae quator.
Venice: Giunta, 1622.
£2250.00
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FIRST EDITION. Folio. pp. [xx] 442 [lxiv]. Roman letter, some italic. Engraved vignette on title of the arms of the dedicatee, Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi, woodcut initials. Light scattered foxing, mostly marginal, a few leaves age-yellowed, light dampstain to lower outer corner of a few gatherings, not affecting text; a good, well margined copy in contemporary Italian limp vellum, small chips at head and foot of spine, very attractive and sound. Contemporary autograph to blank lower portion of final leaf of text. Rare first edition of Alsario della Croce's compendium of the nature and treatment of common medical ailments. Born in Genoa in 1570, della Croce was an eminent professor of medicine in Rome for more than twenty years. He was an early writer on Epilepsy. Presented as a series of letters to his colleagues, each preceded by a series of precise medical questions, this work is aimed at practising physicians, and covers such topics as the symptoms and treatment of asthma, including pills and arsenic; arthritis, abortion, epilepsy, the qualities and appearance of bile, fevers and delirium, appetite during pregnancy, melons and tobacco, as well as the correct doses of medication and the role and responsibilities of the doctor. The work is dedicated to Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi, Pope Gregory XV's nephew, to whom also are addressed a two page prefatory poem by the Irishman, Patrick Roche of Kinsale, and others by the Greek Humanist, Ioannes Matthaeus Caryophilus, for whom Ludovisi secured the archbishopric of Iconium. BMC It. I, 24; Camerini 1258; one copy in the NLM catalogue online; not in Osler, Garrison-Morton, Wellcome, Heirs of Hippocrates, Arents, or Alden.
L510
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