Rare 1523 second (corrected) edition of Linacre's Latin translation of Galen's important medical treatise De sanitate tuenda, also known as Hygiene or On the preservation of health, first published at Paris in 1517 but here in the only other edition published during Linacres life, and rarer than the first edition. Although other works by Galen had been published as early as 1490, they were Latin editions based on Arabic translations. Linacre was the first to make a serious search for reliable Greek manuscripts of Galens works (those from Greek antiquity had been destroyed, so the best sources available were Byzantine transcriptions) and he began with the original Greek text of De sanitate tuenda. Galen (129 - ca. 216?) was a Greek medical practitioner, historian, scientist and philosopher who became physician to the court of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius and who exercised a dominant influence on medicine in Europe, the Byzantine world and the Middle East. The present De sanitate tuenda, being a comprehensive account of the practice of preventive medicine (including personal hygiene), is one of his most influential works.
With a small wormhole near the spine and in the gutter margin of the first three leaves, not affecting the text, and some largely marginal water stains, especially in the upper outside corner (not approaching the text), very slightly affecting the text only in a few leaves. Binding a little stained, most evident in the endpapers, and a few small gaps in the vellum, not affecting the structural integrity, head and foot of spine worn and slightly damaged, with part of the headband at the foot lost, part of one tie lacking. Overall in good condition. The rare and important second (corrected) edition of Linacre's Latin translation of Galen's De sanitate tuenda. Bird 1011; Durling 1927; Durling, Galen 1523.6; EDIT16 20148; OPAC SBN (Catalogo del servizio bibliotecario nationale) MILE030256; Osler 373 (cf. 374: 1526 ed.); USTC 831382 (8 copies); WorldCat (6 copies); cf. Wellcome I, 3805 (1526 ed.); not in Adams; for Linacre and the 1517 ed.: https://history.rcplondon.ac.uk/blog/ornament-his-age.