Lotto 3 | [MEDICINE] ARGENTERIO, De consultationibus, 1551

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[MEDICINE] ARGENTERIO, De consultationibus, 1551

RARE FIRST EDITION ; GIOVANNI ARGENTERIO , A SIXTEENTH-CENTURY MEDICAL INNOVATOR

ARGENTERIO, GIOVANNI. Ioannis Argenterii Castellonouensis ... De consultationibus medicis siue (vt vulgus vocat) de collegiandi ratione liber. Florentiae : cudebat Laurentius Torrentinus ducalis typographus, 1551.
8vo (170 x 110) XVIII century half calf binding, pp. 190, [2, errata, last page blank], signature a-m⁸, Medici coat of arms at title page.

THE FIERCE OPPOSER TO GALEN AND HIS MEDICAL THEORY

Rare First Edition of Argenterio’s treatise on consultation or collegiality in medicine, where Argenterio dismissed the study of the elements “secundum naturam”, as theorized by Galen.

The book was printed by Lorenzo Torrentino, printer that held the ducal monopoly of printing in Florence for several years, publishing only works approved by ducal authority; printing major literary, scientifical and historical works he represented an important instrument for cultural diffusion across Italy.

While discussing the importance of consultation between colleagues, debating about real cases, Argenterio attacks Galen theories: he argues that, when doing a consultation, the physician does not need to explain the natural temperament of the patient, as Galen prescribed, since often elements that are “praeter naturam” can be easily found out without recurring to those “secundum naturam”.

Book structure

•Title page
•Dedicatory letters
•Chapter 1: De hutilitate huius tractationis
•Chapter 2: Quibus constet consultandi ratio
•Chapter 3: De quibus disserendum sit in consultationibus
•Chapter 4: De quibus disserendum sit quum ponitur finis consultationis cognition
•Chapter 5: De quibus disserendum sit quum de actione aliqua consultamus
•Chapter 6: Quo ordine singula sint digerenda
•Chapter 7: De morbo quae dicenda
•Chapter 8: De symptomatis quid dicere oporteat
•Chapter 9: De Causis quae dicenda
•Chapter 10: De signis et praedictionequid dicere oporteat
•Chapter 11: De ratione agendi
•Chapter 11: De probandi, pronunciandique ration ein cinsultationibus

GIOVANNI ARGENTERIO (Castelnuovo d'Asti, 1513 – Turin, 1572) was an Italian physician and author of countless works on medicine.
He was a professor at the Medical Universities of Pisa, Naples, Turin and Mondovì. He became famous for his medical work "De Morbis", published in 1548, De consultationibus medicis, in 1551 and In artem medicinalem Galeni commentarii tres in1553.


ALESSANDRO MASSARIA first ordinary professor of practical medicine at the University of Padua during an oration at university mentioned and detailed the three main contemporary schools of thought in medicine:
•the adherents of the Greeks, and especially of Galen, among whom Massaria counted himself.
•the adherents of the Arabs, especially Avicenna.
•a third group, those who "are drawn to none of the ancients but in a remarkable way to some more recent doctrine.", and as main representant of this third group of innovators he quoted GIOVANNI AGENTERIO, probably the strongest contemporary critic of Galen.


After his death, Argenterio's ideas continued to play a part in late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century endeavours to enlarge or replace Galenic explanations of disease.

The most important criticism raised by Argenterio, is addressed to the physiology of the three spirits (natural, vital and animal) and to their hierarchical localization in the liver, heart and brain.
The weakness not only of the Galenic theory, but also of valid empirical confirmations, pushed the Piedmontese doctor to prefer a conception more directly inspired by Aristotle, whose biological works were increasingly spreading from the beginning of the sixteenth century. He then replaced the three Galenic spirits with a single vital spirit constituted by the “innate heat” residing in the blood.

He then criticized the physiology of the four elementary qualities (hot, cold, dry and humid), qualities that traditionally explained the multiple empirical properties of the organism by their various combinations.

According to Argenterio, the four humors (blood, white bile, black bile, phlegm), still played an important role, with the prevalence of blood, responsible of the spreading of the spirit or vital heat throughout the organism.

Furthermore, blood is no longer produced by the liver but directly by the veins and the vital spirit flowing through them, directs and conditions the various body functions and moods.


Another significant difference from Galen’s theory is related to the action of medicines, no longer considered as carriers of elementary qualities mixing with the organism, but as principles not related to the organism itself, that will react with it on a principle of antipathy or sympathy.


CONDITIONS: light waterstain at the top margin of few internal leaves; in general a very good copy of a rare treatise.


PROVENANCE: faded ownership signature at title page.