1603
True bill of the vvhole number that hath died at London.
BILL OF MORTALITY
The collection, recording, and publishing of medical statistics in the form of Bills of Mortality began in England as a result of the epidemic of plague in 1592-93. The earliest surviving copy of the Bills of Mortalit…
GMN 6821 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/8984
1607 BARRIOS, Juan de (1562 – 1645)
Verdadera medicina, cirugía y astrologia en tres libros dividida.
Concerns medicine of the Aztecs, etc. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.
GMN 8844 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/11022
1615 HERNÁNDEZ DE TOLEDO, Francisco (1517 – 1587); XIMÉNEZ, Francisco (1560 – 1620)
Quatro libros. De la naturaleza, y virtudes de las plantas, y animales que estan receuidos en el vso de medicina en la Nueua España, y la methodo, y correccion, y preparacion, que para administrallas se requiere con lo que el doctor Francisco Hernandez escriuio en lengua latina. : Muy vtil para todo genero de gente q[ue] viue en esta[n]cias y pueblos, de no ay medicos, ni botica.Traduzido, y aumentados muchos simples, y compuestos y otros muchos secretos curatiuos, por Fr. Francisco Ximenes....
Physician to Philip II of Spain, Hernández travelled to Mexico by order of the king, and studied the natural history of the region from 1570-77. His Works, which filled six folio volumes of text and 10 volumes of pain…
GMN 1820.1 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/2097
1618 CISNEROS, Diego (1580 – )
Sitio, naturaleza y propriedades de la Ciudad de Mexico: Aguas y vientos a que esta suieta, y tiempos del año. Necessidad de su conocimiento para el exercicio de la medicina, su incertidumbre y difficultad sin el de la astrologia assi para la curacion como para los prognosticos.
The first book printed in Mexico with engraved illustrations.
GMN 9052 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/11231
1623 ABREU, Aleixo de (1568 – 1630)
Tratado de las siete enfermedades, de la inflammacion universal del higado, zirbo, pyloron, y riñones, y de la obstrucion, de la satiriasi, de la terciana y febre maligna, y passion hipocondriaca. Lleva otros tres tratados, del mal de Loanda, del guzano, y de las fuentes y sedales.
The first important work on tropical diseases. Only six copies of the original edition of this book are known. It includes full accounts of malaria, typhoid, and scurvy, and the first accurate descriptions of yellow f…
GMN 2262.1 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/2808
1623 DAZA DE VALDÉS, Benito (1591 – 1634)
Uso del los antojos para todo genero de vistas, en que se enseña a conocer los grados que a cada uno le faltan de su vista, y los que tienen qualesquier antojos.
The earliest scientific work dealing with spectacles. It includes sight testing tables and points out the value of convex lenses after cataract operations. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link. Eng…
GMN 5821 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/7039
1628 HERNÁNDEZ DE TOLEDO, Francisco (1517 – 1587); RECCHI, Nardo Antonio de ( – 1595)
Rerum medicarum Novae Hispaniae thesaurus, seu, Plantarum animalium mineralium Mexicanorum historia.
This summary of Hemández’s very extensive manuscript account of the natural history of Mexico (see No. 1820.1) was edited by N.A. de Recchi, and published at the expense of Prince Federico Cesi (1585-1630), with notes…
GMN 1821.1 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/2108
1629 PARKINSON, John (1567 – 1650)
Paradisi in sole paradisus terrestris. Or a garden of all sorts of pleasant flowers which our English ayre will permitt to be noursed vp: with a kitchen garden of all manner of herbes, rootes, & fruites, for meate or sause vsed with vs, and an orchard of all sorte of fruitbearing trees and shrubbes fit for our land together with the right orderinge planting & preseruing of them and their vses & vertues.
The title is a pun on the author’s name (park-in-sun). Digital facsimile from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.
GMN 1822 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/2111
1635 CORNUT, Jacques-Philippe [Cornuti] (1606 – 1651)
Canadensium plantarum, aliarúmque nondum editarum historia.
First description of the Canadian Flora. Cornut was a French botanist and physician who never visited North America, but instead received the majority of his plant specimens from the Robins family, who supervised the …
GMN 8953 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/11132
1636 TULP, Nicolaes (1593 – 1674)
Pharmacopoea Amstelredamensis, Senatus auctoritate munita. [Edited by Nicolaes Tulp.]
Tulp was both a surgeon and mayor of Amsterdam. As such he was responsible for inspections of apothecary shops. Thanks to new shipping routes, pharmacists in Amsterdam had access to many exotic herbs and spices from t…
GMN 12135 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/14344
1640 PARKINSON, John (1567 – 1650)
Theatrum botanicum: The theater of plants: Or, An herball of large extent: containing therein a more ample and exact history and declaration of the physicall herbs and plants ... distributed into sundry classes or tribes, for the more easie knowledge of the many herbes of one nature and property ... / collected by the many yeares travaile, industry and experience in this subject.
Parkinson, the last of the old English herbalists, was Apothecary to James I. His massive herbal of 1,755 pages described nearly 3,800 plants, nearly double the number described in the first edition of Gerard. Parkins…
GMN 1823 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/2113
1640 HAMOND, Walter ( – 1648)
A paradox. Prooving, that the inhabitants of the isle called Madagascar, or St. Laurence, ... are the happiest people in the world. Whereunto is prefixed, a briefe and true description of that island: the nature of the climate, and condition of the inhabitants, and their speciall affection to the English above other nations. With most probable arguments of a hopefull and fit plantation of a colony there, in respect of the fruitfulnesse of the soyle, the benignity of the ayre, and the relieving of our English ships, both to and from the East-Indies.
“Hamond, author and explorer, published a translation of Ambroise Paré’s ‘Methode de traicter les Playes faictes par Harquebuses et aultres batons a feu,’ 1617, 4to. He was in the service of the East India Company, an…
GMN 12403 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/14633
1640 LA BROSSE, Guy de (1589 – 1641)
L'ouverture du Jardin Royal de Paris, pour la demonstration des plantes medecinales.
La Brosse founded the Jardin des Plantes (originally Jardin du Roi), the first botanical garden in Paris. It was the second garden of this type in France, after the Jardin des plantes de Montpellier founded in 1593. D…
GMN 13346 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/15617
1641 JOCQUET, Joannes; ET AL
Pharmacopoeia Bruxellensis: Jussu amplissimi senatus edita.
The first Brussels pharmacopeia, modeled after the first Paris pharmacopeia. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.
GMN 12811 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/15057
1642 BONDT, Jacob de [Jacobus Bontius] (1592 – 1631)
De medicina Indorum.
Bontius was probably the first to regard tropical medicine as an independent branch of medical science. He spent the last four years of his life in the Dutch East Indies, and his book incorporates the experience he ga…
GMN 2263 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/2816
1642 RENAUDOT, Théophraste (1586 – 1653)
La presence des absens; ou facile moyen de rendre présent au médecin l'estat d'un malade absent. Dressé par les docteurs en médecine consultans charitablement à Paris pour les pauvres malades.
Renaudot, physician, philanthropist and journalist, published this self-diagnostic handbook so that charity patients could communicate with their physicians by correspondence. Digital facsimile from biusante.paris.des…
GMN 8956 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/11135
1647 AL-SUYŪTI, Abū al-Faḍl ‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Bakr ibn Muḥammad Jalāl al-Dīn al-Khuḍayrī (1445 – 1505); AL-HAQUILANI, Ibrahim (Abraham Ecchellensis) (1605 – 1664)
De proprietatibus ac virtutibus medicis animalium, plantarum, ac gemmarum tractatus triplex. Auctore Habdarrahmano Asiutensi Aegyptio. Nunc primum ex Arabico idiomate Latinate donatus ab Abraham Ecchellensi Maronita, Syracae, & Arabicae linguae Christianissimi Regis intreprete, & earundem in Academia Parisensi professore. Ex MS. Codice biblothecae eminentissimi Cardinal Mazarini.
First Latin translation of a three-part pharmaceutical treatise on the properties and effects of medicines derived from animals, plants, and minerals, attributed to the medieval Egyptian polymath Abd Al-Rahman Al-Suyu…
GMN 12808 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/15054
1648 PISO, Willem [Guillaume le Pois] (1611 – 1678); MARGGRAF, Georg (Marcgrave) (1610 – 1644)
Historia naturalis Brasiliae.
Piso's study of the natural history of Brazil was also a pioneer work on tropical medicine, and also the largest work from the standpoint of format published by the Elzeviers. The folio includes De medicina brasiliens…
GMN 2263.1 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/2828
1652 CULPEPER, Nicholas (1616 – 1654)
The English physitian: Or, an astrologo-physical discourse of the vulgar herbs of this nation. Being a compleat method of physick, whereby a man may preserve his body in health; or cure himself, being sick, for three pence charge, with such things only as grow in England, as they being most fit for English bodies. Herein is also shewed, 1. The way of making plaisters, oyntments, oyls, pultisses, syrups, julips, or waters, of all sorts of physical herbs, that you may have them readie for your use at all times of the yeer. 2. What planet governeth every herb or tree (used in physick) that groweth in England. 3. The time of gathering all herbs, both vulgarly, and astrologically. 4. The way of drying and keeping the herbs all the yeer. 5. The way of keeping their juyces ready for use at all times. 6. The way of making and keeping all kind of useful compounds made of herbs. 7. The way of mixing medicines, according to cause and mixture of the disease, and part of the body afflicted.
"Culpeper attempted to make medical treatments more accessible to laypersons by educating them about maintaining their health. Ultimately his ambition was to reform the system of medicine by questioning traditional me…
GMN 8588 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/10765
1656 BOYM, Michal Piotr (1612 – 1659)
Flora sinensis, fructus floresque humillime porrigens serenissimo et potentissimo Leopoldo Ignatio, Hungariae regi florentissimo, &c. Fructus saecul promittenti Augustissimos.
The first description published in Europe of an ecosystem of the Far East, including animals as well as plants, with particular attention to Chinese fruit bearing plants, and medicinal properties of Chinese plants. Di…
GMN 8591 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/10768
1658 PISO, Willem [Guillaume le Pois] (1611 – 1678); BONDT, Jacob de [Jacobus Bontius] (1592 – 1631)
De Indiae utriusque re naturali et medica libri quatuordecim.
This is an extensively revised and enlarged second edition of Piso’s Historia naturalis Brasiliae (1648). In this edition Piso reprinted Bontius's De medicina Indorum (1642) with two additional books on Asian flora an…
GMN 1825 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/2125
1662 BARTHOLIN, Thomas (1616 – 1680)
Cista medica Hafniensis: variis consiliis, curationibus, casibus rarioribus, Vitis medicorum Hafniensium, aliisq; ad rem medicam, anatomicam, botanicam & chymicam spectantibus referta. Accedit eiusdem Domus anatomica brevissime descripta.
Histories of famous physicians in Copenhagen along with the description of the building designed for the teaching of anatomy there, designated the "Anatomy House". Bartholin's Domus anatomica brevissime descripta was …
GMN 7690 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/9862
1663 BADO, Sebastiano [Baldi, Baldo] (1610 – 1676)
Anastasis corticis Peruviae, seu chinae defensio
A defence of the virtues of Jesuit's bark or Peruvian bark (cinchona, chinchona), the most celebrated specific remedy for malaria. It was obtained from the bark of several species of the genus Cinchona, of the Rubiace…
GMN 1826 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/7875
1665
London’s dreadful visitation, or, a collection of all the Bills of Mortality for the present year: beginning the 27th of December 1664, and ending the 19th of December following…By the Company of Parish Clerks of London.
BILLS OF MORTALITY
This is a valuable statistical record of the great plague of 1665. (No. 6052 in the Bibliotheca Osleriana.)
GMN 5119 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/8855
1666 BARTHOLIN, Thomas (1616 – 1680)
De medicina Danorum domestica dissertationes x.
An early study of medicine in Denmark, including local botanic drugs and folk medicine. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.
GMN 9638 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/11825
1666 PÉREZ FADRIQUE, Juan Eulogio
Modo practico de embalsamar cuerpos defunctos, para preservarlos incorruptos....
On embalming corpses, and on human cadavers. This work includes (pp. 98-127) instructions for the embalming process in Spain, with woodcut illustrations of the tools used and recipes for the ointments. The author also…
GMN 13899 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/16191
1667 DU TERTRE, Jean Baptiste (1610 – 1687)
Histoire générale des Antilles habités par les Français. Tom. 1.
Du Tertre, a priest, described (pp. 81, 99, 423) the outbreaks of yellow fever at Guadeloupe in 1635, 1640, and 1648.
GMN 5450 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/7513
1667 VINCENT, Thomas (1634 – 1678)
Gods terrible voice in the city of London wherein you have the narration of the two late dreadful judgements of plague and fire, inflicted by the Lord upon that city; the former in the year 1665. The latter in the year 1666
This edition of a plague tract by English puritan minister Thomas Vincent was the first medical or biological publication in North America. It was issued by printer Samuel Green, using a press in Cambridge, Massachuse…
GMN 6823 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/8986
1670 RAY, John (1628 – 1705)
Catalogus plantarum Angliae, et insularum adjacentium: tum indigenas, tum in agris passim cultas complectens.
Includes some ethnobotanical notes regarding medical remedies. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.
GMN 9286 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/11468
1671 ANONYMOUS
Les secrets de la médecine des chinois, consistant en la parfaite connoissance du pouls. Envoyez de la Chine par un françois, homme de grand mérite.
The first Western book on Chinese medicine, with a few brief comments on Japanese methods. This anonymous collection of translations of early Chinese texts on pulse medicine has been variously attributed to different …
GMN 6491.9 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/7994
1671 LA MARTINIÈRE, Pierre Martin de (1634 – 1690)
Voyage des pais septentrionaux: Dans lequel se void [sic] les moeurs, maniere de vivre, & superstitions des Norweguiens, Lappons, Kiloppes, Borandiens, Syberiens, Samojedes, Zembliens, & Islandois, enrichi de plusieurs figures.
Translated into English as A new voyage into the northern countries being a discription of the manners, customs, superstition, buildings, and habits of the Norwegians, Laponians, Kilops, Borandians, Siberians, Samojed…
GMN 10124 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/12313
1671 BLONDEL, François (1613 – 1703)
Thermarum Aquisgranensium et porcetanarum descriptio. Congruorum quoque ac salubrium usuum balneationis et potationis elucidatio, opera.
An extenisvely illustrated work promoting the medicinal value of the sulphur springs of Aachen and Burscheid. Blondel devoted his life to the promotion of the medicinal value of these springs, becoming inspector of th…
GMN 12881 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/15128
1672 JOSSELYN, John (1630 – 1675)
New-Englands rarities discovered: in birds, beasts, fishes, serpents, and plants of that country. Together with the physical and chyrurgical remedies wherewith the natives constantly use to cure their distempers, wounds, and sores…
The first detailed account of the natural history and botany of North America, including the first extensive study of native North American medicine.
GMN 1826.1 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/2138
1672 CLERMONT, Charles [CLAROMONTIUS]
De aere, locis, et aquis terrae Angliae; deque morbis Anglorum vernaculis. Cum observationibus ratiocinatione & curandi method illustratis.
An outline of the medical topography of England.
GMN 1769 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/3309
1672 HUGHES, William ( – 1683)
The American physician : or, a treatise of the roots, plants, trees, shrubs, fruit, herbs, etc., growing in the English Plantations in America ; ... whereunto is added a discourse of the Cacao-nut-Tree, and the use of its fruit ; with all the ways of making Chocolate
The earliest work in English on the medicinal virtues of North American tropical plants. Based on first-hand observations made in the West Indies, Evidence suggests that Hughes began his career in 1651 with a privatee…
GMN 7007 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/9173
1672 JOSSELYN, John (1630 – 1675)
New-Englands rarities discovered: In birds, beasts, fishes, serpents, and plants of that country. Together with the physical and chyrurgical remedies wherewith the natives constantly use to cure their distempers, wounds, and sores; also A perfect description of an Indian squa, in all her bravery, with a poem not improperly conferr'd upon her; lastly, a chronological table of the most remarkable passage in that country amongst the English.
Josselyn's books give some of the earliest and most complete information on New England flora and fauna in colonial times, and his outlook was later praised by Henry Thoreau, among others. Digital facsimile from Biodi…
GMN 13878 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/16168
1673 BROWNE, Edward (1644 – 1708)
A Brief Account of Some Travels in Hungaria, Servia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Thessaly, Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, and Friuli.
Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.
GMN 7328 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/9499
1674 JOSSELYN, John (1630 – 1675)
An account of two voyages to New-England. Wherein you have the setting out of a ship, with the charges; The prices of all necessaries for furnishing a planter and his family at his first coming: a description of the countrey [sic], natives, and creatures; with their merchantil [sic] and physical use; the government of the countrey as it is now possessed by the English, &c. A large chronological table of the most remarkable passages, from the first discovering of the continent of America, to the year 1673.
Josselyn first visited America in 1638-39 and returned from 1663 to 1671. His second and more extensive book includes an herbal, with numerous botanical as well as medical and surgical descriptions, and is considered …
GMN 13261 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/15527
1677 THACHER, Thomas (1620 – 1678)
A brief rule to guide the common-people of New-England how to order themselves and theirs in the small pocks, or measels.
The first medical publication of North America and the only one to appear in the 17th century. Only one copy of the original printing of this broadside survived, written by Thacher, a Boston minister. The sheet was re…
GMN 5406 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/7256
1677 HASEIAH, Laurentius [HASEIAC]
De postrema Melitensi lue praxis historica.
This work, recording the epidemic of plague in Malta in 1675-76, was the first medical work published by a Maltese.
GMN 5122 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/8856
1677 GRIM, Herman Niklas (1641 – 1711)
Laboratorium chymicum, gehouden op het voortreffelycke Eylandt Ceylon, soo in't Animalische, Vegetabilische, als Mineralische Ryck.
The first book on the animal, vegetable and mineral medicines indigenous to Sri Lanka. Grim was a physician in the service of the VOC (the East India Company). Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.
GMN 10648 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/12841
1678 –1703 COMMELIN, Jan [COMMELIJN] (1629 – 1692); VAN RHEEDE TOT DRAKENSTEIN, Hendrik Adriaan (1636 – 1691); ALMELOVEEN, Theodorus Janssonius van (1657 – 1712); CASEARIUS, Johannes (1642 – 1677); VAN DYCK, Jan; MUNNICKS, Johannes (Munnickius) (1652 – 1711); POOT, Abraham van (1617 – ); SOMEREN, Joannes van; SEYEN, Arnold (Syen) (1640 – 1678); BOOM, Henrik & Dirk
Hortus Indicus Malabaricus: Continens regni Malabarici apud Indos cereberrimi onmis generis plantas rariores, Latinas, Malabaricis, Arabicis, Brachmanum charactareibus hominibusque expressas ....12 vols.
The earliest comprehensive printed work on the flora of Asia and the tropics in 12 folio volumes written and published under the supervision of van Rheede tot Drakenstein, a colonial administrator of the Dutch East In…
GMN 9543 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/11729
1679 TRAPHAM, Thomas ( – 1692)
A discourse of the state of health in the island of Jamaica. With a provision therefore calculated from the air, the place, and the water: the customs and manners of living, &c.
The first English book on tropical medicine. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.
GMN 9909 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/12097
1680 COUCH, Robert; PACKE, Christopher (1657 – 1708)
Praxis catholica: or the countryman's universal remedy wherein is plainly and briefly laid down the nature, matter, manner, place and cure of most diseases, incident to the body of man, not hitherto discovered, whereby any one of an ordinary capacity may apprehend the true cause of his distempers, wherein his cure consists, and the means to effect it : together with rules how to order children in that most violent disease of vomiting and looseness, &c. : useful likewise for seamen and travellers : also an account of an imcomparable powder for wounds or hurts which cure any ordinary ones at once dressing. Written by Robert Couch, sometime practitioner in physick and chyrurgery, at Boston in New-England. Now published with divers useful additions (for public benefit) by Chr. Pack, operator in chymistry.
The first medical book written in the British colonies of North America. The introduction, "To all ingenious students and practitioners in physick and chyrurgery", is signed Robert Couch, but the extent of additions i…
GMN 9698 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/11885
1682 CLEYER, Andreas (1634 – 1698)
Specimen medicinae Sinicae.
One of the earliest studies of Chinese medicine published in the West. (See also Nos. 6472.10 et seq.). Cleyer edited these translations of Chinese medical texts, reproducing a series of 30 plates dealing with Chinese…
GMN 6492 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/7995
1682 YONGE, James (1646 – 1721)
Wounds of the brain proved curable, not only by the opinion and experience of many (the best) authors, but the remarkable history of a child four years old cured of two very large depressions, with the loss of a great part of the skull, a portion of the brain also issuing thorough a penetrating wound of the dura and pia mater…
Probably the first monograph in English on surgery of the head and brain. Yonge was a naval surgeon who set up in practice in Plymouth after he gave up the sea. He had just performed the operation for an injury of the…
GMN 8836 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/11014
1683 TEN RHIJNE, Willem (1647 – 1700)
Dissertatio de arthritide: mantissa schematica: de acupunctura: et orationes tres…
This work by the resident physician at Deshima, the Dutch East India Company’s trading station in Nagasaki Bay, Japan, contains the first detailed description of acupuncture, and the first illustration of acu-points p…
GMN 6374.1 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/8316
1683 MOURÃO, Simão Pinheiro [Morão] (1620 – 1686)
Trattado unico das bexigas, e sarampo, offerecido a D. João de Sousa, composto por Romaõ Mõsia Reinhipo.
One of the first works on medicine practiced in Brazil, published by Mourão under the pseudonym Romaõ Mõsia Reinhipo. Mourão distinguished clearly between smallpox and measles. There was still much confusion in the se…
GMN 8934 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/11112
1683 TRYON, Thomas (1634 – 1703)
The way to health, long life and happiness, or, a discourse of temperance and the particular nature of all things requisit for the life of man as all sorts of meats, drinks, air, exercise, &c. with special directions how to use each of them to be the best advantage of the body and mind. Shewing from the true ground of nature whence most diseases proceed, and how to prevent them. To which is added, a treatise of most sorts of English herbs ... the like never before published / communicated to the world for a general good, by Philotheos Physiologus.
Tryon, an English merchant, was the author of popular self-help books and an early advocate of vegetarianism. Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.
GMN 9308 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/11490
1683 SUTHERLAND, James (1638 – 1719)
Hortus medicus Edinburgensis, or, A catalogue of the plants in the Physical Garden at Edinburgh: Containing their most proper Latin and English names; with an English alphabetical index.
Digital facsimile from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.
GMN 13076 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/15328