Physician Visits Plague Victim, 1491
This illustration accompanies a tract on avoiding the plague, an often deadly disease which first devastated Europe in 1348 and continued in the form of epidemics until the 1700s. The image shows a plague victim who, judging from his face, is in bad shape but, judging from the setting, rather privileged. A physician is visiting the patient at home. He is taking the pulse, while holding to his nose a sponge soaked with wine vinegar, which was the prime prophylactic against the plague's "miasma," that is, spoiled and infectious air. Johannes de Ketham's The Fasiculo de medicina contains six independent and quite different medieval medical treatises. The collection, which existed only in two manuscripts (handwritten copies), was first printed in 1491, in the original Latin with the title, Fasciculus medicinae. The book is remarkable as the first illustrated medical work to appear in print. This image has been color enhanced.
Size: 3300px × 5104px
Photo credit: © Photo Researchers / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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