Health Sciences

Despite a lack of publications, Leonardo’s fame grew as word of his notebooks spread. The first book by Leonardo to be printed was his Treatise on Painting, published a century after his death.

Many textbooks begin their list of early microscopists with Leeuwenhoek, who published most of his discoveries in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. This volume is an anthology of many of those articles. Leeuwenhoek’s microscope had only a single, powerful lens.

On the Island of Hven, Tycho Brahe built a Renaissance research center called Uraniborg, “City of the Stars.” The first book printed on Tycho’s printing press at Uraniborg displays his motto, “looking up, I look down.” That motto symbolized his aim of coordinating the study of astronomy,...

In the most lavishly illustrated book of the 1400’s, solid spheres ceaselessly turn, carrying the planets and filling the universe between the outermost heaven and the central Earth.

Medieval human dissection manual: Written in 1316 by a professor of medicine at the University of Padua, the Anatomy of Mondino was the most widely-used manual for human dissection in the middle ages.

Della Porta’s portrayal of a lynx on the title page of this and other works inspired Cesi with the name for his own Academy. Here, della Porta announced the existence of the Accademia Secretorum Naturae, an academy he founded in Naples cx. 1580 with the aim of discovering the secrets of nature...

What sports did they play in ancient Greece and Rome? This book by a leading physician of the Renaissance attempts to answer that question. Mercuriale once recommended Galileo for a university position.

For Robert Fludd, the universe is a monochord, its physical structure unintelligible without an understanding of music. In another section of the book, Fludd depicts the universe as a Temple of Music.

Planetary and stellar influences affect one’s physical temperament, so one must take steps not to catch the melancholic “influenza” of Saturn: “There’s some ill planet reigns: I must be patient till the heavens look With an aspect more favorable” (A Winter's Tale).

Galileo kept the design of his engineering compass carefully guarded, yet a dispute over intellectual property rights ensued. In 1607, Baldassar Capra published under his own name a Latin translation of Galileo's Compasso, including instructions for making the instrument.

A “calendarium” contains predictions of the positions of the Sun and Moon for several decades into the future. Regiomontanus calculated their positions for 40 years beginning in 1476; Stoeffler for 62 years from 1518-1579 inclusive.

Best known work of early modern anatomy: Vesalius was fortunate to team up with Jan Stephan van Calcar, a world class artist. Even the human skeletons reveal an aesthetic appreciation of the human body.

This work, first published in the year of Galileo’s trial (1633), contains the first use of microscopic illustration in a botanical work. Ferrari described many exotic plants, including limes, lemons and pomegranates, and citron, which he prescribed as medicinal plants against scurvy.

Medieval remedies and natural knowledge: An explosion of 16th-century herbals dramatically extended the “materia medica” tradition deriving from ancient writers, assimilating a vast increase in the number of known plants.

Nieremberg saw an unpublished manuscript of Hernandez. Many of his descriptions of plants and animals relied upon Hernandez and other sources from Mexico and Peru. In classification, Nieremberg retained Hernandez’ use of native Nahuatl names.

This work is a commentary on the Ling-shu, a classic treatise on acupuncture and moxibustion. It describes treatments for a variety of conditions, with 45 depictions of acupuncture points for both adults and children.

In an appendix to an anatomical work, written for Ferdinand Medici II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, Steno recounted his dissection of the head of a shark that recently had washed ashore.

Herbals were illustrated, colored, and issued both in large folios and small, economical, hand-sized, field-guide formats like this one.

Between Vesalius and Harvey at Padua: Colombo, a student of Vesalius at Padua, elucidated the pulmonary circulation and described the mitral valve of the heart. William Harvey frequently cited Colombo in his De motu cordis, (On the Circulation of the Blood, 1628).

Della Porta applied the “doctrine of signatures” to humans and animals, exploring how the shape of someone’s head, ears, nose or some other external feature might reveal that person’s true, inner nature by how closely it resembles a particular animal.

Woodcuts adorn the top of each page in this “astro-meteorology,” a fusion of meteorology, astronomy, chemistry and medicine containing forecasts for the next 24 years.

Gerard, an estate manager for Queen Elizabeth’s chief executive, was in contact with naturalists around the world who sent him both plants and soil to grow them in. The first illustration of the “Virginia potato” appears in this volume.

Galileo’s physics, applied to medicine: Santorio Santorio (also known as Sanctorio or Sanctorius) practiced medicine in Padua, in the Venetian Republic.

The “influenza” of Saturn brings melancholy: On one occasion, Galileo was called as an expert medical witness in a trial to testify about the physical effects of melancholy.

The physics of bones and muscles: Borelli, a practicing mathematician and engineer as well as a physician, analyzed the musculoskeletal system in terms of the mechanics of the lever and other simple machines. Borelli studied under Galileo’s student Castelli, along with Torricelli.

Rebellion against the limitations of 18th century HMOs: The frontispiece to this work protests the limited medicines available from the official apothecary. The Pharmacopoeia Austriaco-provincialis (Vienna, 1774) mandated the medicines and remedies to be made available.

Family medical handbook: Works entitled “Aristotle’s Masterpiece” were family health guides, written in the vernacular, offering practical remedies and advice for life cycle care, sexual relations, prenatal care, birthing and midwifery, hygiene and health.

The body in mechanical philosophy: Descartes applied the mechanical philosophy to every field of natural knowledge, including cosmology, meteorology, the Earth, astronomy and, in this book, the human body.

The quest to eliminate smallpox through vaccination: Jenner, a student of John Hunter, knowing that milkmaids who contracted cowpox became immune to smallpox, surmised that pus from cowpox blisters could be used to vaccinate anyone against smallpox.