Heading:
Author: Mercurio, Girolamo
Title: La Commare o' Raccoglitrice
Place Published: Venice
Publisher:Domenico Valuasense
Date Published: 1703
Description:

[xxxii], 390 pp. Several woodcut illustrations in text. (4to) 22x16 cm (8½x6½") early full vellum. Later Edition.

A standard text on obstetrics for more than a century following its initial publication. "First issued in 1596, this was one of the earliest works on obstetrics to be published in Italy. It maintained an authoritative position in Italy and Germany for more than one hundred and twenty-five years, and Mercurio's writings remain as the outstanding contribution to Italian obstetrics during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The work is divided into three parts: the first deals with natural labor and care of the mother and child, the second with abnormal presentations, and the third with diseases that complicate pregnancy and affect the newborn. It is interesting to note that the illustrations are taken from the 1596 edition and have been used again in this edition more than one hundred years later. This work also contains a treatise by Pietro de Castro (1603-ca. 1657) on colostrum and skin diseases of children and a treatise on the diseases of women by Giovanni Marinelli." - Heirs of Hippocrates, No. 377 (1713 ed.). Cushing M297 (1601 ed.); Garrison-Morton 6144 (1596 ed.); Waller 6494 (1618 ed.); Wellcome 4259 (1601 ed.).

Binding well worn, spine perished, vellum on rear nibbled and detached from board; ink notes on half title, light foxing throughout; internally very good.