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.

Augsburg, Theophil Goebel, 1674.

4to (155 x 208 mm). (54), 456, (120) pp. Title-page printed in red and black. With engraved frontispiece, engraved portrait, and 13 engraved plates. 18th century full calf, spine prettily gilt. Marbled pastedowns. All edges red.

 28,000.00

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.

Provenance

Title-page and frontispiece have the near-contemporary ink ownership of A. Hildebrand, Königsberg. Later in the library of the French neurologist Maurice Villaret (1877-1946) with his woodcut bookplate to front pastedown.

Condition

Binding rubbed, interior somewhat browned and occasionally stained throughout. Engravings rather closely trimmed.

References

VD 17, 23:275441M. Garrison/Morton 5336.1. Krivatsy 12928. Waller 9856. Parkinson-L. 2574. Choulant, Handbuch 366 f. Hirsch/Hübotter V, 895.