Volume 1

John de Burdeus or John de Burgundia : otherwise Sir John de Mandeville and the pestilence.

  • Murray, David
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: John de Burdeus or John de Burgundia : otherwise Sir John de Mandeville and the pestilence. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    nimium propter instans tempus epidemiale.” The “Gover- nayle of Helth” has likewise been attributed to him. None of his works, excluding the last mentioned, has been printed. Of those upon the pestilence there are many manuscript copies. A.—MANUSGRIPTS°OF, DHESCARG HRT heel le i brite Musa Royal MM Site Gal eet olor sveuim: Formerly in the Thayer collection ; mentioned in Bernard’s Catalosus MSs, -Angliz et Hibernize, iisip. 201 ee Cale. Cataloouep.214 The present volume is very imperfect. At the foot of many of the pages there are the words “haec deficit,’ and this treatise (f. 158-160) is part of an older volume. The pieces in the collection are mostly by English writers, John de Gren- borough, Edward of Oxford, and Gilbert Legley, of the last of whom, Thayer notes f. 5, that he flourished A.D. 1210, and an- other note says, “He was of Sarum, and the junior of all the 7 masters of the archane scyence of Physicke.” Immediately preceding the tract in question is a piece “Causa pestilencie.” Then comes the rubric :—“ Post signa pestilencie sequitur cura pestilencie seu epidemie et earum infirmitates, causatas seu signatas per conjunctiones infra- scriptas secundum doctrinam Magistri Johannis de Burgundia, alio nomine Johannis cum Barba.” Begins—‘ Quia omnia inferiora tam elementa quam elemen- tata a superioribus reguntur, ut dicit Messehallak in libro Interpretationum,” &c. Ends—‘“ Non pro precio sed pro precibus hoc egi ut cum quivis convaluit pro me oret. Amen.” Our author styles himself “ Johannes de Burgundia, aliter vocatus cum Barba civis Leodiensis [or Leodensis] ac artis medicine professor.” He speaks of having practised medicine for forty years; and refers to his experience in the plague which raged in Liege in 1365. He says that of all who had written upon the subject, no one spoke from personal observa- tion save Hippocrates, and claims that his own treatise is
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