Storia della bibliografia medica: una risorsa utile per l’insegnamento di storia della medicina? Un esempio pratico: l’illustrazione della peste

History of medical bibliography: a useful tool for teaching medical history? A practical sample: explaining the plague

Abstract

The history of medical bibliography is considered an exclusive prerogative of research for historians of bibliography, historians of book and libraries but not a matter of interest to medical historians. Actually, it represents a high-level potential research field almost unexplored and underused in medical history and also in didactics. The history of medical bibliography suggests original teaching paths to medical historians with connection to the main theories of medical historical knowledge development. The flourishing medical bibliographies printed between the 16th and 17th-century represent a wide didactic tool to introduce medical students to rare medical books collections. The paper offers a practical sample: the history of theories, preventive remedies and treatments of the plague, explained using the printed medical bibliography of Otto Brunfels (1530) and Johannes Antonides Van der Linden (1662).