Sales catalogue: Maggs Bros

Date:
1929
Reference:
WA/HMM/CM/Sal/13/74
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

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

    65/78 page 49
    SUPPLEMENT sXe) THE POL MEDICAL LIBRARY: Dr. Pow’s Book ON THE CURE OF SYPHILIS. [34] POL, Nicotaus, Royal physician. De cura morbi Gallici per lignum Guaycanum libellus. Roman Letter, 8 leaves. | (Venice), 1535. 4to. Vellum. Written by Dr. Pol in 1517, this is the earliest work known to us treating of the cure of the Morbus gallicus, or syphilis, by guaiacum wood imported from the West Indies. The guaiacum wood was first introduced into Europe by the Spaniards in 1508. Administered in cases of syphilis, the decoction of the wood was reckoned a certain specific, insomuch that at first (to quote Paynel, of the wood called Guaiacum, 1540) ‘ the physitions wolde _ not allowe it, perceynynge that theyr profite wolde decay theby.’ Nicolaus Pol writes that some three thousand persons in Spain have already been restored to health by it. The Emperor Maximilian] had a very real interest in the subject of syphilis, and dispatched into Spain and Portugal a number of eminent men to investigate the disease. Cardinal Matthaeus Lang, Bishop of Gurk, who seems to have had charge of the investigations, arranged for the importa- tion of guaiacum wood into Germany. The learned Dr. Pol was in all probability one of the party, and to Cardinal Lang is dedicated his work on the cure of syphilis by guaiacum wood. The first edition, according to J. K. Proksch (Die Litteratur iiber die venertschen Krankheiten, ill, p. 543), was printed, without name of place or printer, in 1517, the very year that the work was composed. Nowhere, however, have we found confirmation of this edition, and we are inclined to regard as the first the edition of 1535. In 1536 the work was reprinted in a collection of authors on syphilis both at Bale and Lyons. 40
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