FROM A MEDICAL TREATISE IN LATIN

Italy, ca. 1275. 272 x 193 mm. (10 3/4 x 7 1/2"). Double column, 67 lines of text in a pleasing regular gothic hand.
In a very attractive 21 1/2 x 17 1/2" walnut frame of antique design with the leaf in a sunken compartment with a gold lip, a brass label below the compartment. Once purchased from Quaritch, with their description on the back. ◆Formerly used as the flyleaf in a binding, so slightly soiled, text with minor fading, a very small portion (perhaps one or two lines) of the text trimmed off at bottom, half a dozen small round wormholes, but still an attractive legible example of an unusual text.

The Quaritch description says that the leaf is from "a Medieval medical work based on Galen concerned with fevers, especially those that last a single day ('febres ephemerae'); the present leaf contains the text of chapters 4-7. The author speaks about bloodletting (not . . . for the young or elderly), baths, honey (the better kind is clean, clear, and of sharp odor), and delicate Roman women. He cites Hippocrates and the 'Regimen Sanitatis' of Salerno as well as his own writings 'Quisquis igitur se non exercet in meis libris, non poterit intelligere' ('Whoever, then, does not train himself in my own books will not be able to understand'). The text has a strong Galenic tone (although it is not a translation of [Galen's] 'De Differentiis Febrium') and suggests a Medieval work based on Galen and possibly from the great Salerno medical school. The vocabulary includes post-classical words such as 'acetositas' (acidity), and even some words unrecorded in the massive 'Thesaurus Linguae Latinae,' Oxford Medieval Latin Dictionary, and Du Cange, such as 'crapulositas' (drunkenness) and 'indigestabilitas.'" The leaf has obvious interest for its content, and it is well presented in its attractive frame..