GARDEN OF HEALTH, Illustrated incunable, HORTUS SANITATIS WITH IMPORTANT CONTEMPORARY ANNOTATIONS by Annotated incunabula - 1497: With contemporary annotations in low-German against an epidemic.

HORTUS SANITATIS, Strasbourg, J. Pruss, 1497. Folio (30 x 20 cm), 338 leaves (from 360 leaves but mainly only the index is missing). 17th century calf. Profusely illustrated throughout with over a 1000 woodcuts, with three full page woodcuts with contemporary annotations in low-German against an epidemic.

Missing, d6, B3, B4. Blank margin of the first leaf with full page woodcut fully annotated, margin of ii6, recto blanc fully annotated, title-page of Tractatus Animalibus fully annotated, margins of u8, a1 title page of the Urinis fully annotated, recto in the margins. Recto the margin BB4. Few scattered annotations throughout.

The annotations are highly original, this is not sale talk, they are not mere comments on the text as one always sees, but working notes of a city doctor, working in times of epidemics and going door to door: Notes on the treatment of the sick, including outbreaks, supervision of the sick and self-protection of the doctor against infection, recipes for the preparation of remedies and ointments such as dietary measures against pestilence, fever and other ailments in Dutch or low German (Rhineland) According to the script, the notes are contemporary with the incunabulum and date from the late 15th century.

The Hortus Sanitatis (also written Ortus; Latin for The Garden of Health), the first natural history encyclopedia, was published by Jacob Meydenbach in Mainz, Germany in 1491. This is the third and enlarged edition. It describes species in the natural world along with their medicinal uses and modes of preparation. It is in part an extended Latin translation of the German Herbarius, the Gart der Gesundheit of Peter Schöffer, published in 1485 but, unlike that earlier work, also deals with animals, birds, fish, and stones. The author entirely restructured the text, so that each chapter proceeds from a physical description of the plant and its synonyms to a discussion of its geographical origins and finally a list of its medicinal applications, the latter headed "Operationes". Many of the plants describes are immediately recognizable, but there are somewhere fantasy has taken over. The mandrake, in truth, has a near-magical ability to relieve pain. Its wrinkled forked root, however, was believed to represent a man. Furthermore, if it was pulled up it would emit a shriek so appalling that it would kill the collector (JK Rowling derived her inspiration from this, when she wrote Harry Potter).

The solution is also given: the collector should take a dog with him and tie its lead to the plant. Then, after stopping his ears to shut out the lethal shriek, he should beat the dog so that it flees and so pulls up the root.


To this traditional section on plants, he added a greatly enlarged section on animals, birds, fish, stones, and minerals, whose medicinal properties had been only briefly alluded to in the Gart der Gesundheit, expanded the treatise on uroscopy. They also includes accounts of mythical animals such as the dragon, harpy, hydra, myrmecoleon, phoenix, and zitiron. The crocodile was of interest because, perhaps paradoxically, ointments made from its body parts would cure wrinkled skin. Even dragons appear amongst Meydenbach's descriptions, as does the unicorn, which he recommends as a fertility aid for those struggling to conceive.