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Lot 222
[MEDICAL-SUDOR ANGLICUS] Auf ains Erbern Rats der Statt Augspurg beuelhe vonwegen ainer Ersamen gemainde daselbs und sonst manigklic...
. Augsburg: [Silvan Otmar, 1529]. First edition. Modern quarter vellum, dark brown paste paper covers. 7 x 5 inches (18 x 13 cm); 6 ff. in Gothic type, collating A^(6). Two small marginal stains on title, barely discernible old central crease; the pamphlet appears to have been folded in the distant past with negligible evidence; some slight toning, but overall a very nice example of an extremely fugitive work.
Silvan Otmar published town ordinances for Augsburg for several decades, in addition to general publications. This emergency pamphlet (the first of two editions) alerts city residents to the spreading outbreak of the sudor anglicus, the English sweating sickness or "English sweate." Epidemics of this enigmatic disease first occurred in England in 1485; the last recorded epidemic, also in England, seems to have been around 1551, at which point it appears to have essentially ceased. Much of Europe was affected, and the disease, whose cause (a hantavirus? the "Picardy Sweat?") remains debated to this day, was exceptionally virulent and highly infectious. It killed its victims in hours, and there seems to have been little that medicine could do, hence the somewhat despairing tone of the pamphlet and the injunction on the title "Jesu Christu sey unnser helsser"; not much help could be looked for elsewhere. The pamphlet (as with most books on the subject) is very rare. The date of the work comes from VD 16 4060, which indicates three copies in German libraries. Not recorded by most major references on early printing and medicine.
C
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