This work on ghosts is one of the earliest works on psychic experiences illusions, hallucinations, and delusions. The English translation, London 1572, probably gave Shakespeare some pointers on the behavior of the ghost in Hamlet.

Opera medicinalia was the first medical book printed in the Western Hemisphere, and its botanical images were the first illustrations of plants printed in the Western Hemisphere. Of the original edition only two copies are known, of which the only complete copy is at the La Biblioteca José María Lafragua at the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Mexico. In 1862 American bookseller and bibliographer Henry Stevens purchased an incomplete copy at an auction sale of the library of collector/dealer/book thief Guglielmo Libri in London. This he resold to the American collector James Lennox. The Lennox copy is preserved in the New York Public Library. In 1970 London antiquarian booksellers Dawsons of Pall issued a facsimile of the complete Universidad de Puebla copy with a companion volume of commentary by Francisco Guerra.

"Opera Medicinalia consists of a set of treatises on various medical topics including a long discourse on a disease called “tabardete,” which may have been typhus, citing works on the topic by earlier Arab and Greek physicians. Typhus is a disease spread by lice, and was common on board ships crossing the Atlantic during the colonial period. Also included in the book is a long treatise in the form of a dialog on bloodletting accompanied by a simplistic woodcut of the venous system inspired by Andreas Vesalius’ Epistle [on Venesection], printed in Basel in 1539. Bravo also included a long discussion of the sarsaparilla plant (Smilax aspera), native to North America, including Mexico, whose roots were thought to cure a number of ailments. The book includes two woodcut illustrations of the plant by Juan Ortiz which were based upon illustrations from Pietro Mattioli’s Commentaries on Dioscorides (Commentarii… De Materia Medica) published in Venice in 1554. The fact that Bravo’s book was written in Latin, shows that it was aimed at a scholarly audience rather than the general public" (https://circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov/2014/10/29/the-first-medical-book-printed-in-the-new-world/, accessed 02-2017).

Digital facsimile of the 1570 edition from primeroslibros.org at this link.

Portions of the book have been translated into Spanish as: 

BRAVO, Francisco, (ca 1525-1595) Observations on the raicilla, which in the indigenous language they call zarzaparrilla / Francisco Bravo Puebla; Preliminary study, translation into Spanish and notes by José Gaspar Rodolfo Cortés Riveroll; Paleography and biographies of Rodolfo Cortés Madrazo. Puebla, México: Benemérita Autonomous University of Puebla, Faculty of Medicine, 2011, 175 p., ISBN 978-607-487-326-9 [ View the full text of this work in PDF format ]

BRAVO, Francisco, (ca 1525-1595) On venosection in pleuritis and in general of other inflammations of the body / Francisco Bravo Puebla; Preliminary study, translation into Castilian and notes of Jose Gaspar Rodolfo Cortés Riveroll. Puebla, Mexico: Benemérita Autonomous University of Puebla, Faculty of Medicine, Dirección de Fomento Editorial, 2008, 206 p., ISBN 978-968-9391-408 [ View full text of this work in PDF format ]

Includes the first printed edition of the Greek text and Latin translation by Mercuriale of Alexander's De vermis epistola.  Alexander's original description of worms and vermifuges make him the first parasitologist. Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

Caius, a pioneer naturalist as well as a physician, corresponded with Conrad Gessner, with whom he had made friends while returning from Padua. Caius wrote this study of British dogs to send to Gessner as a contribution (not used) to Gessner's Historiae animalium, and also sent Gessner drawings of dogs, which were printed in later editions of Gessner's work. Translated into English as Of Englishe dogges, the diversities, the names, the natures and the properties. A short treatise written in Latine and newly drawne into Englishe by Abraham Fleming (London: Rychard Johnes, 1576). Digital facsimile of an 1880 edition of Fleming's translation from the Internet Archive at this link.

Martinez de Castrillo's second book on dentistry was based on richer clinical and therapeutic experience, and had a great influence in Spain for almost a century. It was partially copied or summarized by doctors, surgeons, and even by non-medical authors. 

Cesalpino preceded Harvey in the discovery of the concept of the circulation, and Harvey must have known of his ideas, but Cesalpino’s idea of the circulation was not supported by convincing experimental work or quantitative evidence.

A comprehensive study of mineral waters, dealing with all the spas of the then-known world. Besides exhaustive coverage of the baths of antiquity and of Bacci’s own time, the work gives considerable attention to wines, especially in relation to their medical use. This work was reprinted several times, into the 18th century. Digital facsimile of the first edition from Google Books at this link.

Coiter made several important contributions to the study of human anatomy, and was the first to elevate comparative anatomy to the rank of an independent branch of biology. His Externarum et internarum principalium humani corporis partium tabulae is a collection of ten short works, among which are the first monograph on the ear (De auditus instrumento); the earliest study of the growth of the skeleton as a whole in the human fetus (Ossium tum humani foetus . . .); the first descriptions of the spinal ganglia and musculus corrugator supercilii (in Observationum anatomicarum chirurgicarumque miscellanea); and Coiter's epochal (although unillustrated) investigation of the development of the chick in ovo (De ovorum gallinaceorum generationis. . .), based upon observations made over twenty successive days. This last was the first published study of chick embryo development based upon direct observation since the three-period description (after three, ten and twenty days of incubation) given by Aristotle in his Historia animalium two thousand years before.

Coiter was one of the first physicians to draw the illustrations for his own publications, and to take credit for them in print. It is believed that Vesalius may have done some of the simpler illustrations for the Fabrica; however, none of the Fabrica images are signed, and questions concerning their authorship have led to centuries of speculation and debate. Coiter's illustrations of the adult skeleton and skull, after Vesalius, are superior in anatomical detail; and his sketches of fetal skeletons are original. English translation with parallel Latin text and biographical introductions as Opuscula Selecta Neerlandicorum de Arte Medica XVIII (Amsterdam: Sumptibus Societatis, 1955).  See No. 284.

For further details see the entry at HistoryofInformation.com at this link.

The first systematic textbook on diseases of the skin. English translation by R. L. Sutton Jr, Kansas City, Missouri, Lowell Press, 1986. Mercuriali enjoyed a great reputation in his day; he wrote on many medical subjects, including medical gymnastics. See No. 1986.1.

The catalogue of the private library of the Augsburg physician Jeremias Martius may be the earliest printed catalogue of any private library. It is possible that only one copy survived.

 The Arab mathematician, astronomer, and physicist of the Islamic Golden Age Alhazen made significant contributions to the principles of optics and the theory of visual perception in his Opticae thesaurus. Risner's edition also included Witelo's Perspectiva.

Modern edition: Alhacen's theory of visual perception. A critical edition, with English translation and commentary, of the first three books of Alhacen's De aspectibus, the medieval Latin version of Ibn-al-Haytham's Kitāb al-Manāzir by A. Mark Smith. 2 vols. Philadelphia, American Philosophical Society, 2001.

The earliest treatise in French on tobacco, including its usage in medicine, and probably the earliest separate treatise on tobacco in any language.  Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link. See Bowen, W. H., "The earliest treatise on tobacco: Jacques Gohory's 'Instruction sur l'herbe petum," Isis, 38, 349-363.

Varolio described a new method of dissection which enabled him to observe and describe the pons for the first time. By this new method Varolio was able to make some contributions to the knowledge of the course and termination of the cranial nerves and to trace the course of the optic nerve approximately to its true termination. His name is perpetuated in the “pons varolii”.

Many reports of real malformations are intermixed with mythical accounts. English translations, 1634, and later. Recent English translation, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1982. Digital facsimile of the 1573 edition from BnF Gallica at this link.

Croce improved the instruments for trephination, and published classic woodcuts depicting the operation, including the first illustration of a neurological surgery operation actually taking place. The work is also important for Croce’s descriptions of cranial and cerebral diseases. In hundreds of woodcuts of instruments and procedures Croce illustrated all of the instruments used before and during his own time. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Translated into Italian with expanded text as Cirugia universale e perfetta di tutte le parti pertinenti all’ottimo chirurgo (1574). Digital facsimile of the 1584 Italian translation from Google Books at this link. 

For biography, bibliography, and interpretation see Antonio Di leva & Jeffrey V. Rosenfeld, "The legacy of Renaissance surgeon Giovanni Andrea Dalla Croce on the history of military surgery and neurosurgery," Journal of Neurosurgery, 53, Issue 3 (2022).

Legislation governing the practice of midwifery was introduced in the city of Frankfurt in 1573, Digital facsimile from the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek at this link.

First exact description of the lacrimal duct. Carcano gave the true position of the lacrimal gland and showed the route taken by the tears.

Huarte was a distinguished Spanish physician and psychologist. His Examen, which gained for him a European reputation, was the first attempt to show the connection between psychology and physiology. English translation by Richard Carew as The Examination of mens wits (London, 1594), and Lessing translated the book into German. Over the next two centuries Examen was published "in six different languages: in Spanish fifteen times, twenty-five in French, six in Italian, five in English, three in Latin and one in Dutch. In total nine translators rendered this work into other tongues, and the book was printed in twenty different European cities" (Carew translation, edited by R. G. Sumillera; see No. 8705). Digital facsimile of the 1594 English translation from the Internet Archive at this link; of the 1594 Spanish edition from the National Library of Spain at this link.

Paré was the greatest of the army surgeons before Larrey. Born in poor circumstances, he became the most famous surgeon in France. He is particularly remembered for his abandonment of boiling oil and the cautery (No. 2139), for his revival of podalic version (No. 6140), his re-introduction of the ligature and his invention of many new surgical instruments. He was the first to suggest that syphilis is a cause of aneurysm. He popularized the truss, introduced artificial limbs, and (in dentistry) reimplantation of the teeth. See also No. 59. This folio is the first edition of his collected works, reprinting texts that Paré previously published separately in octavo format. The fifth and most complete edition of the Oeuvres, containing the first printing of Paré’s final revisions, was published in Paris, 1598. English translation (from the 1582 Latin translation of the second [1579] edition) by botanist and apothecary Thomas Johnson, London, 1634. Digital facsimile of the 1575 edition from BnF Gallica at this link. Digital facsimile of the 1649 second edition in English from the Medical Heritage Library, Internet Archive, at this link.

Coiter, a pupil of Fallopius and Eustachius, became town physician of Nuremberg. His book on comparative osteology, contained in his edition of the lectures of Fallopius, extended his studies begun in his work of 1572-73, (No. 1539). Coiter’s study of the skeleton of the fetus and of a child six months old was the first study of developmental osteology and showed where ossification begins. The copperplate engravings are after drawings by Coiter. Biography and English translation by B. T. W. Nuyens and A. Schierbeck, Haarlem, 1956.

An anthology of selected writings on fevers by Greek, Arab and Latin authors, including Hippocrates, Galen, Paul of Aegina, Alexander of Tralles, Aetius, Oribasius, Nonus, Actuarius, Avicenna, Rhazes, Avenzoar, Averroës, Isaac Judaeus, Serapion, Haly Abbas, Celsus, Serenus, Pliny, Gariopontus, Constantinus Africanus, Gordon, Peter of Abano, Arnold of Villanova, Nicolaus Nicolus, and the medical writings attributed to Philonius. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

A small book, of which only two copies survived, at the British Library and Cambridge University. As first shown by J F Payne in 1896, this work is very similar to a manuscript (MS 564) in the Wellcome Library. This manuscript is a fifteenth century (c.1475) copy of an earlier text written in Middle English around 1392 by an anonymous London surgeon, who copied the work of earlier writers. When first published this text was attributed to the 16th century English physician, surgeon and anatomist Thomas Vicary, who may have once owned the manuscript. Traditionally it was believed that this work had been first published in 1548, though no copies are known to exist. The text was first printed in the English translation of Thomas Geminus's anatomy (1553). In the second, significantly expanded, edition, issued in 1586 the title of the work was changed to The Englishmans treasure, or treasor for Englishmen: with the true anatomye of mans body.  See Duncan P. Thomas, "Thomas Vicary and the anatomie of nans Body," Journal of Medical History, 50 (2006) 235–246. Digital facsimile of the London, 1599 edition from the Internet Archive at this link.

An early illustrated work on pediatrics. The three parts of his book deal with the management of the nurse and her milk, the care and feeding of the new-born, and diseases of children, including skin diseases, and chapter on burns. There are four chapters on eye diseases, two on diseases of the ear, and five on the gums and teeth. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

This is mainly a translation of Garcia d’Orta’s Coloquios (No. 1815) with the addition of some illustrations. Acosta, a Portuguese Jesuit physician and surgeon, travelled to India where he met Garcia d’Orta. Acosta pioneered the pharmacological study of plants of the East Indies. Asian plants that he described include ginger, cinnamon, pepper, nutmeg, opium and cardamom. The American plants include pineapple, sugar cane, rubber, and the “Indian fig” of Peru. After an account of opium, the work ends with an illustrated treatise on the Indian elephant.

Coytard distinguished between petechial typhus and typhoid.

Second edition, Mexico, 1595: Summa y recopilacion de cirugia, con un arte para sangrar, y examen de barberos ... va añadido en esta segunda impresion el origen ... de las reumas. López de Hinojos was a barber-surgeon working at the Hospital Real de los Naturales in Mexico City. He learned from his native assistants to use more than 50 local plants, some of which he endorsed In his book. Digital facsimile of an incomplate copy of the 1595 edition from the Internet Archive at this link.

Includes some of the first studies of  the plants and botanic remedies of the New World. Second edition, Tractado breve de medicina (1592). This is an abridgement of manuscripts left in Mexico by Francisco Hernández. See Nos. 1820.1 & 1821.1. Digital facsimile of the 1592 edition from BibliotecaVirtualAndalucía at this link.

William Clowes, the greatest of the Elizabethan surgeons, published the first original English treatise on syphilis. It was his first work; it demonstrates the prevalence of the disease at that time (Clowes says that of every 20 persons admitted to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, 15 were found to be suffering from syphilis). Facsimile reprint, New York, Da Capo Press, 1972.

French translation, Paris, 1879.