[Montbéliard, medicine]. BINNINGER (Jean-Nicolas). Observati - Lot 321

[Montbéliard, medicine]. BINNINGER (Jean-Nicolas). Observationum et curationum medicinalium, centuriæ quique. Montbéliard, Typis Hyppianis, 1673. Small in-8° of [14], 622, [22] pp. 1 f. bl. Engraved portrait of the author on frontispiece, printer's mark on title. Covered ivory vellum, apparent binding, handwritten title in ink on spine, cold fillet on boards, blue edges (contemporary binding). Rare first edition. Jean Nicolas Binninger (Montbéliard, 1628-1692), was a descendant of the treasurers of the princes of Montbéliard, where he lived and printed this work. He had studied medicine in Basel, Padua and Montpellier before becoming a professor of medicine in Montbéliard. "J. N. Binninger is also the author of a collection of 500 observations on the art of healing, the most interesting of which are those accompanying an exposition of the results he obtained by opening cadavers. The author believed in forensic astrology and the possibility of metal transformation; he believed in obsessions and the existence of sorcerers. Proof of this can be found in his thesis and in more than one page of his book" (C. Duvernoy, Notices sur quelques médecins, naturalistes et agronomes nés ou établis à Montbéliard dès le seizième siècle, Besançon, 1835, p.40). Handwritten bookplate of physician Bartholomé Anton Gurndt, stamp of the Gieringsche Biblioth[ek]. Stained vellum, small crack to one spine. A good copy, however.