Fondren Library Center

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Current Exhibit

Alexandri Tralliani ... Libri duodecim, graeci et latine, multo quàm antea auctiores & integriores. (Basileae : Per Henricum Petrum, 1556).  Edited by Joannes Guinterius (1487-1574).

This edition of the medical work of Alexander of Tralles is a rare work, proudly displayed by a few leading libraries with outstanding collections of early scientific texts.  Guinterius wrote extensively on medicine, publishing early editions of Galen and other important ancient medical writers.  Alexander of Tralles was a Byzantine doctor practicing in Rome in the sixth century AD, whose treatments for intestinal worms and for gout remained standards until the advent of modern drugs in the twentieth century.  This volume, a treatise on pathology and the therapeutic treatment of internal diseases, survives not only in the original Greek but also in Medieval Latin and Arabic translations, offering remedies for dandruff, baldness, for dying grey hair, as well as for serious physical and mental diseases.  Alexander’s family was distinguished; his brother Anthemios was the builder of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (Istanbul).