BIANCHELLI, Mengo [BLANCHELLUS, Menghius] De omni genere febrium. Et de morbidis particularibus a capite usque ad pedes. Venice, Stefano dei Nicolini da Sabbio, 1536
Folio (309 x 205 mm), ff77 [1], with architectural woodcut title border, woodcut printer's device on title and colophon leaf; a fine copy in nineteenth-century German speckled boards. £4850
First edition of this treatise on fevers and general 'head to toe' catalogue of illnessness and their treatment by the Faenza physician and philosopher Bianchelli (ca 1440-1520). Bass notes that Bianchelli 'was a subtle scholastic and a great astrologist, who recognized e.g. a pulse high in the middle and contracted at the sides, a pulse twisted like a thread, and distinguished abnormal heat as a species added to the natural warmth' (History of medicine p. 292). He was also the author of one of the earlist treatises on medicinal baths, and a treatise on the plague (Contro alla peste, 1523).
The first half of the book sets out a general theory of medicine, followed by Bianchelli's theory of fevers. This comprises fevers in general, fevers generated within the body and by external agents (such as food, drink, poisons, etc.), diagnosis by pulse, fevers generated in the blood and by the other humours of the body (phlegmatic, melancholic, choleric), pestilential fevers, and treatment of the various species of fever.
The second half comprises a standard list of illnesses and their remedies, 'a capite ad pedes'. The work was edited by Laurentius Ursetus.
Bianchelli was also the author of a work on baths, and commentaires on the Aristotelian commentator Paulus Venetus.
Wellcome list this work under a variant title, De morbis particularibus a capite ad pedes, et de omnium febrium genere, opus. The work is rare and is not listed in NUC or the major medical bibliographies apart from Wellcome.
Provenance: inscription 'Hans Henneck Apothek Berlin iv 9 1941'
BM STC Italian p 106; Wellcome 883; not in NUC;OCLC gives the National Library of Medicine
£4850
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