Petri a Castro - Febris Maligna Puncticularis - 1685

Petri a Castro Bayonatis.
Febris Maligna Puncticularis. Aphorisms delineated.
Patavii (Padova), Typis Iacobi de Cadorinis, (1685).

Small-format in-12° (about 14.6 x 9 cm), pp. (10), 148, (8).

A copy in a contemporaneous soft binding with manuscript title on the spine (wear marks, small old label on the cover). Interior fresh, with some normal signs of age and light blooms typical of the era. A good complete copy, with title page, woodcut borders and decorated initials.

Medical treatise in Latin on the “Febris maligna puncticularis” (petechial malignant fever or petechial typhus), one of the leading epidemic fevers of the time (today mainly identified with exanthematous typhus).

The author, Pedro de Castro (Bayonne, ca. 1603-1657), a Marrano physician of Portuguese-Spanish origin active in Verona and in Italy, describes in aphoristic form: causes (according to humoral Galenic medicine), symptoms (petechiae resembling flea bites, delirium, prostration, etc.), prognosis, differential diagnosis and therapies (diet, purges, bleeding, purgatives, alexipharmaca such as bezoar, unicorn horn, mercury and alchemical antidotes). It includes sections on surgery, pharmacopoeia and prognostic signs.

A significant work of Italian Baroque medicine, recording clinical observation of epidemics of typhus in the 17th century (notably in Verona). Castro was among the first to describe this contagious pathology in detail, contributing to the literature on “malignant fevers” before microbiological discoveries. The text went through several editions (1653 and others), but this Padua edition of 1685 is relatively rare on the market.

Copies of this work are rare on the market, especially in good condition; it is a piece sought after by collectors of medical history, incunabula/seventeenth-century medical texts and epidemiological works. High antique value for its scientific-historical content and scarcity.

Perfect for collectors of old scientific books and medical history. General condition good for a volume from 1685.