Huntington did not apparently have a special interest in the history of medicine and was interested in these items instead for their rarity, beauty, and significance to the history of printing.Įarly staff members at The Huntington recognized the importance of this collection it was librarian Herman Ralph Mead who in 1931 published 'Incunabula Medica in the Huntington Library,' a useful text enumerating the material. institutions holding large numbers of incunabula medica today include Harvard University’s Countway Library and the National Library of Medicine, whose collections arose because of a special interest in the history of medicine. Huntington's purchases of so-called incunabula-books, broadsides, or pamphlets printed in Europe following Johannes Gutenberg's revolution in printing but before 1501-were so massive and extensive that he built one of the largest collections of medical incunabula in North America, evidently by accident. It was an extraordinary and somewhat serendipitous occurrence that led to The Huntington's becoming one of the best institutions in the United States to study European medicine from the latter half of the 15th century.

The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Detail from Es spricht der Meÿster Almanasor, Augsburg, 1483. Urinalysis was among the most common diagnostic tools of medieval medicine. A physician attends to a bedridden patient and observes a flask of what is likely urine.

Wie spricht man gesundheit aus