Heading: (Occult Medicine)
Author: Fludd, Robert
Title: Four works by Robert Flood bound together, three are on medicine
Place Published: Francofurti & no place
Publisher:
Date Published: 1629-1633
Description:

(Folio) 30.8x19.5 cm (12x7¾"), period vellum, ribbon ties. ;

Comprises:

• 
  [Anatomiae amphitheatrum effigie triplici, more et conditione varia, designatum]. [2], 3-331 pp. Folding engraved plate, numerous engravings in the text. (Lacking engraved title page and apparently another preliminary leaf (or 2?). [Francofurti: Sumptibus Johannis Theodori de Bry?, 1623].


• 
  [Clavis philosophiae et alchymiae Fluddanae, sive, Roberti Fluddi... ad epistolicam Petri Gassendi Theologi exercitationem responsum...] 3-87 pp. ;(Lacking title page). [Francofurti: Prostat apud Guilhelmum Fitzerum, 1633].


• 
  Katholikon medicorum katoptron: in quo quasi speculo politissimo morbi... prospiciuntur... Sive tomi primi, tractatius secundi, sectio secunda, de Morborum Signis. [4], 413, [1] pp. Engravings in the text, one on an integral folding leaf (the leaf with paper repair on verso, resulting in slight loss of image, neatly re-inked); folding double page inserted table with illustration. (Possibly lacking an engraved plate, but the necessary count is unclear, perhaps due to the presence of the folding integral leaf with engraved illustration.) [Francofurti]: ;1631.


• 
  [Pulsus; seu, Nova et arcana pulsuum historia, esacro fonte radicaliter extracta, nec non medicorum ethnicorum dictis et authoritate comprobata...] 3-93 pp. Engraved illustrations in the text. Large folding printed leaf at end, titled "Medicamentosum Apollinis Oraculum", which is missing in most copies. ;(Lacking title leaf, final leaf detached and trimmed, perhaps supplied from another copy - a folding table apparently called for not present, but it might be that the large printed leaf, which has aspects of a table, is what is referred to.) No place: 1629. ;

Three important works on occult medicine by the great Elizabethan English physician, all richly illustrated, bound together with Fludd's great defense of his occult doctrines (Clavis Philosophiae). The Anatomiae is Fludd's first published work on medicine, and details the mystic anatomy of man, with special sections on the blood, the sperm, the heart, and the brain. The Katholikon discusses the interpretation of the signs and symptoms of disease, using the several methods of physiognomy, geomancy, chiromancy, and urine analysis. The Pulsus treats the occult mysteries of the pulse, articulating the various species of pulse and how the pulse can be used to diagnose disease; it also includes Fludd's first defense of Harvey's view of the circulation of the blood. Fludd's works are bibliographically complex, and there is no uniformly recognized description of the texts (such that each cataloguer tends to describe the contents differently, making it difficult to determine, for example, whether a particular plate is in fact to be considered a table, or vice versa.) Fludd's medical treatises had a more limited distribution than his works on metaphysic and the occult sciences, and they are accordingly very rare in commerce.

Wear to covers, surface vellum of spine strip partially perished; some foxing and darkening within; very good.