Based on Avicenna

[Ibn Sina (Avicenna)]. Welsch (Velschius), Georg Hieronymus. Exercitatio de vena Medinensi, ad mentem Ebnsinae, sive de dracunculis veterum. Specimen exhibens novae versionis ex Arabico, cum commentario uberiori. Cui accedit altera, de vermiculis capillaribus infantium.

€ 30,000.00

Only edition of this rare monograph, an "exhaustive survey of dracontiasis" (Garrison/M.). Infection with the tropical disease dracontiasis (or dracunculiasis) is caused by the larvae of the Medina or Guinea worm; a connection with contaminated drinking water was suspected even in antiquity and by medieval Arabic physicians.

The German physician and oriental linguist G. H. Welsch (1624-77) inserts the Arabic text from Ibn Sina's Qanun (book IV, fen III, paragraph II, chapters 21-22) and earlier Latin translations by Gerardus Cremonensis and Andrea Alpago before offering his own translation, with extensive commentaries. The text includes quotations from 28 languages (with a separate index), including Ethiopian (in Hebrew type), Brazilian, Mexican, Japanese, and Chinese (in Persian transliteration) etc. From page 395 onwards the work comprises Georg Cunelius's "De Dracunculis" (first published in Basel in 1589). The engravings show examples of worm balls in classical depictions (e.g., Medusa) and suggested remedies (drawing the worm from the vein). Also contains the usually lacking portrait of Empress Claudia Felicitas, wife of Leopold I.