Sales catalogue 404: Maggs Bros

Date:
1921
Reference:
WA/HMM/CM/Sal/13/8
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sales catalogue 404: Maggs Bros. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/248 (page 10)
    TWELFTH CENTURY. MEDICAL MANUSCRIPT. LATIN MANUSCRIPT (BY AN ENGLISH SCRIBE) ON VELLUM, WRITTEN IN CAROLINE CHARACTERS, BY THREE OR FOUR HANDS, EXECUTED IN ENGLAND IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE XIIth CENTURY. 190 LEAVES (8 11/16 by 52 INCHES). Ato, Old English binding 1m marbled calf. SaeCHoutls : £155 ** * A MANUSCRIPT OF THE HIGHEST IMPORTANCE TO THE STUDENT OF THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE. It contains upwards of 26 treatises on medicine, as follows: A treatise on plasters; Extracts or notes on the Hellebore, the bite of the mad dog, ete.; A short list of cataplasms, plasters, syrups, antidotes, and Galenus de morsu rabidi canis. Directions for a three days’ fast, followed by prayers to obtain certain graces, and by the Sortes Apostolice; a short list of lotions and unguents; Prologus et commentum Alexandri super Aphorismos Hippocratis (leaves 14-78); Liber Alexandri (a list of medicaments and cures for various ailments, probably by Alexander Trallianus, and with contemporary interesting marginal notes by a different hand), leaves 78-95; Ratio ponderum vel mensurarum diversarum medicinarum. Medical receipts for various ailments; Oratio ad dispensandam medicinam; Galeni de pulsu et urinis, et Prognostica (leaves 101-3); ORIBASIT DE HERBARUM VIRTU- TIBUS (leaves 103-20); Dynamedia Hippocratis (leaves 121-28); De. passionibus sin- gulis (an enumeration of various maladies with a list of potions); De signis ponderum secundum graecos (leaf 1380); Liber Oribasii ad Eustadium filium suum (leaves 131-40) ; Liber Oribasti ad Kunapium Huporistam (leaves 140-146). Two letters of Hippocrates to his Mecenas and to King Antigonus; Ratio sphaerae Pythagorae philosophi, quam Apollonius descripsit, de egris, sive vita sive moris eis futura fuerit, ete. (Leaf 148); Liber Comstantinia de cirurgiis (leaves 149-59); ALPHABETUM HERBARUM GRAECE ET LATINE (leaves 161-68); EHEPISTOLA GALIENIT IN ANTIBALLOMENON FOLLOWED BY THE LIST OF MEDICINES AND HERBS WITH THEIR SUBSTITUTES (eaves 168-9); A HERBARY FROM GALEN AND OTHERS; Philaretus de pulsibus (leaves 177-78); Curatio Elephan- tiosorum (leaf 179); Prognostica Hippocratis (leaves 180-85), etc. The last 5 leaves contain an account of three miracles operated by the Virgin; and the first line of the hymn Ave Mari Stella, the Venite exultemus, the Christmas hymn Laudes Deo dicam, and the Sanctus, all with musical notation by neums. It is of great interest to note that the date of the manuscript can be assigned pretty accurately between the years 1100 and 1150; for on the verso of leaf 148 is given a list of Popes beginning with Alexander IT. and ending with Eugenius IT]. (1061-1153). But the note referring to Hugenius ITT. (1145-53) is in different ink and hand, thus showing it had been added by another person and at a somewhat later date, while all the previous ones are by the sanie hand.