Prospero Alpini / Jacob de Bondt - Medicina Aegyptiorum or Medicine of the Egyptians / Medicina Indorum or Medicine of the Indians - 1718-1719

BEAUTIFUL ILLUSTRATED EDITION of Medicine, Pharmacology and Tropical Medicine by Prospero ALPINI (1553-1616) a Italian physician and Jacob de BONDT (1592-1631) a Dutch physician who worked in the Dutch East Indies. 4 BOOKS in ONE VOLUME. Prospero ALPINI's first book "Medicina Aegyptiorum" or Medicine of the Egyptians reveals for the first time to Europeans the use of coffee as an energy drink, for recreational purposes and as an alternative to wine. ALPINI also reveals Arab-Turkish-Ottoman healing techniques through the description of pharmacological compounds, various balms, scarification, bloodletting, cupping, moxibustion, use of various systems to detoxify, defeat fevers, dysentery, non-invasively remove urinary tract stones and predict diseases through urine analysis. Jacob de BONDT thanks to his stay in Java and Dutch East Indies was at the time the leading expert on tropical diseases in the Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Java, Bali, Thailand, Malay Archipelago. In this book "Medicina Indorum" or Medicine of the Indians, there is the first medical description of "beri-beri" (Thiamine Deficiency), tropical fevers, hepatitis, epidemics of dysentery, cholera, and the properties of plants, fruits, spices then unknown to the Western world such as turmeric, pepper, opium poppy, coconut etc... The book is well illustrated with 8 detailed and well contrasted engravings, the famous coffee plant is shown for the first time but also some medical practices in vogue in Cairo and the Ottoman Empire and unknown to European doctors. Antique Dutch binding in good condition.

THIS VOLUME CONTAINS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER THE FOLLOWING 4 BOOKS, EACH WITH ITS OWN TITLE AND DATE RANGING FROM 1718 TO 1719:

1) "Medicina Aegyptiorum" or Medicine of the Egyptians, by Prospero ALPINI. It is the first 360-degree research on Egypt and the methods of treatment of Egyptian doctors, nature, climate, nutrition, longevity of the population, lifestyle, the use of diets, baths and saunas to improve hygiene and expel toxins and kidney stones, treatments for genital disorders in women and the use of exotic plants as antidotes (Theriac), decoctions, cures and as perfumes. Here the coffee plant is revealed for the first time, the use of toasted seeds, the energizing properties and therapeutic-social purposes. A substantial part was devoted to the plague, its recent manifestation in Cairo (with half a million victims) and ALPINI's views remained points of reference and contention well into the nineteenth century (Seth, Difference and Disease, 35). ALPINI was critical of the Egyptian practice of blood-letting, to which a handsome full-page woodcut is devoted; in his opinion it was used too often (even on children) and the amount of blood let was excessive. The book is conceived as a dialogue between ALPINI and his master; the German botanist Melchior Wieland (1520-1589) known in Italy as Melchiorre Guilandino and at the time professor at the University of Padova and prefect of the botanical garden. ALPINI lived 3 years in Egypt as personal physician to the Venetian ambassador in Cairo, and from a practice in the management of datepalms, which he observed in that country, he learned of sexual difference in plants, which was later to become important in the foundation of the Linnaean taxonomy system. After the publication of these researches he became a university professor and the fourth prefect of the botanical garden of Padova, founded in 1545, the oldest botanical garden in the world and an international research centre where the rarest species arrived and from there ALPINI maintained correspondence with other scientists such as Gaspard Bauhin (1560-1624) and Joachim Camerarius the Younger (1534-1598) and a close exchange of seeds and plants.

2) "De Balsamo Dialogus" or The Balsam Dialogue, by Prospero ALPINI. It is a treatise written in Cairo and dedicated to the Mecca Balsam (Commiphora Opobalsamum) also known as Balm of Gilead or Arabian balsam tree, the plant was renowned for the expensive perfume that was thought to be produced from it, as well as for exceptional medicinal properties that were attributed to its sap, wood, bark, and seeds. The exposition is innovative because it is done in the form of a dialogue, between the author himself, the Egyptian doctor Abdella and the Jew Abdachim in a garden in Cairo, in front of a specimen of the plant. The ancients were obsessed with this mythical balm, but it arrived in Italy and Europe mostly with the wrong formula or was ineffective or poisonous in many cases. ALPINI's intent was to find the correct formula and transmit it to scientists. Many of these balms or antidotes such as Theriac, Theriaca or Venice Treacle were then exported from Venice and sold in pharmacies throughout Europe.

3) "De Rhapontico" or The Rhaponticum, by Prospero ALPINI. It is a botanical monograph, dedicated to a species of rhubarb (Rheum Rhaponticum), which one of his students had brought from the Rhodope Mountains in Bulgaria, and which he had successfully planted in the botanical garden of Padova, maintaining in part its therapeutic properties. ALPINI therefore hoped that the possibility of cultivating this species in Padova would eliminate the expensive importation of the drug and put an end to the sale of substitutes poor in active ingredients.

4) "Medicina Indorum" or The Medicine of the Indians, by Jacob de BONDT. It is a monograph on the properties of plants in the Dutch East Indies and the tropical diseases of the region. BONDT was the first to study cholera on the island of Java and Indonesia, before it was known in Europe. His botanic and medical works were published after his death by Willem Piso/Pisonius (1611-1678). He "was probably the first to regard tropical medicine as an independent branch of medical science. BONDT spent the last four years of his life in the Dutch East Indies, and his book incorporates the experience he gained there. It is the first Dutch work on tropical medicine and includes the first modern descriptions of beri-beri (Thiamine Deficiency) and cholera" (Garrison/M. 2263, citing the 1642 first edition). Also listed are the characteristics and healing properties of plants, fruits and spices unknown in Europe such as: turmeric, pepper, opium poppy, gum benjamin tree, red sealing wax palm, aloe, cardamom, coconut, tamarind...etc.

Title: "Medicina Aegyptiorum" or Medicine of the Egyptians + "De Balsamo Dialogus" or The Balsam Dialogue + "De Rhapontico" or The Rhaponticum by Prospero ALPINI. Plus "Medicina Indorum" or The Medicine of the Indians, by Jacob de BONDT. Published between 1718-1719, in Leiden by Ex Officina Boutesteiniana (Boutesteyn Cornelis). Text in Latin.

Description: In 4to size; H 205 x W 170 mm or 8.1 by 6.7 inches. Title illustrated in red and black [24 preface and dedication], 325 pages, [47 index], 44 pages, [8 index], 25 pages, [1 index], 109 pages , [1 index], some numbering errors, plus 8 engraved plates. Period Dutch hard parchment binding, in good condition with friezes on the boards. Signs of wear, stains and small losses to the corners, ends and boards, but the binding is solid and in good working order. Text well printed, wide and intact margins, scattered water stains here and there but which do not affect reading, intact illustrations, missing the last page of the index (inserted in a photocopy). BEAUTIFUL ILLUSTRATED EDITION, 4 BOOKS in ONE VOLUME.

References: For Prospero ALPINI, BM STC It., p. 20; Adams, A802; Mortimer, Harvard C16 It., 16; Heirs of Hippocrates, 240 (1646 ed.); Osler, 1796; Durling, 178; Wellcome I, 232; Garrison-Morton, 6468 (all citing one first edition 1591); Simon II, 42. S. Seth, Difference and Disease (Cambridge, 2018); Stannard, Jerry (1970). "Alpini, Prospero". Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. 1. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 124–125. For Jacob de BONDT, GM 2263; Heirs of Hippocrates, 463 (all citing one first edition 1642).

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