Happy Title Page Tuesday! This fantastic engraved title comes from the Institutionum Medicinae Libri
Happy Title Page Tuesday! This fantastic engraved title comes from the Institutionum Medicinae Libri V by Daniel Sennert. Like many of its contemporaries, it includes a number of symbolic images - Adam and Eve at the very top, the écorché figure to the left of the central square - but we want to draw your attention to the the three small illustrations just below Adam and Eve. Medicine is often seen as consisting of the three branches of medicine, surgery, and pharmacy, and lo and behold, you can see them here! On the left, a surgeon performs a cranial operation on his patient. In the middle, a physician examines a flask of urine to diagnose illness. And on the right, an apothecary prepares medical prescriptions. Although these practices were meant to be professionally distinct, the lines between them were often blurred - for example, physicians let blood, while apothecaries might prescribe medicine instead of just mixing it. -- source link
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