First edition of this important collection of surgical texts, selected and edited by Conrad Gessner, who also included his own treatise, De medicinae chirurgicae praestantia et antiquitate. At a time when surgery was still largely neglected by traditional academic medicine, Gessner brought together in a single substantial volume the best ancient, medieval, and contemporary surgical treatises.
The work may be regarded, in every respect, as one of the earliest histories and bio-bibliographies of surgery and its practitioners, covering around 150 authors, from Hippocrates to more recent figures such as Guido Guidi, Jean Tagault, Jacopo Dondi, Mariano Santo, Angelo Bolognini, Michelangelo Biondo, Bartolomeo Maggi, Alfonso Ferri, Jacques Houllier, and Joachim Lang, among others.
The volume presents the surgical techniques of the period: amputations, treatment of gunshot wounds, ulcers, gangrene, abscesses, tumours, fractures, and infected injuries. The woodcut illustrations, including skeletons, surgical instruments, and battlefield surgery scenes, are taken from Vesalius, Gersdorff, and Guidi. It also contains a glossary of surgical remedies arranged by pathology, mentioning the use of boiled cannabis for infected wounds, gum arabic for the healing of fractures, the use of Balsamum anodynum Guidonis as an analgesic, the application of arsenic to wounds, and the properties of lignum indicum, a Caribbean plant with antibacterial qualities used against syphilis.
Conrad Gessner, a native of Zurich, was an emblematic figure of the Renaissance: physician, botanist, zoologist, Hellenist, bibliographer, prolific editor, and professor of philosophy. He studied classical languages and theology in Strasbourg, then medicine in Bourges, Paris, and Montpellier. In 1537 he was appointed professor of Greek at the Academy of Lausanne, and from 1541 he lived in Zurich, where he practised medicine. From 1546 he also taught physics, natural philosophy, and ethics. He died of plague on 13 December 1565, at the age of 49—specifically a pulmonary form of bubonic plague, according to his own descriptions.
