of knowledge. Parchment, the material upon which books were written, was expensive and was at times difficult to obtain; both of which circumstances rendered books so costly that only a few physicians were able to become the owners of the important standard medical works of that period—such, for example, as the Hippocratic writings, Galen's treatises, the surgical manuals of de Mondeville and Guy de Chauliac, the pharmacopoeia of Dioscorides, and still other books of lesser value. And, if a satisfactory method of manufacturing paper had not first been discovered, the benefits growing out of the invention of printing in 1467 would have been far less than they actually proved to be. Some idea of the magnitude of these benefits may be formed from the following statement of facts. The demand for books, after the invention of printing, became so great that the presses were kept almost constantly busy. At first, according to the record furnished by Haeser, Venice and Rome took the lead in supplying this great demand for books; the former city printing 2978 and the latter 972 volumes between the years 1467 and 1560; but, during a later period (1500-1536), Paris outstripped Venice with a total of 3056 volumes, and Strassburg advanced to the second place with a showing of 1021 volumes printed during the same period of time. Thanks to the great diminution in the market price of books that resulted from the two inventions named—the manufacture of paper and the introduction of printing—almost every physician in fairly prosperous circumstances was able at that period to purchase the relatively few medical treatises which issued from the presses; and, besides, new authors were thenceforth stimulated to put their experiences into print.
Among the very first medical books printed the following deserve to be mentioned:—
(In Germany.) Buch der Bündth-Erznei, by Heinrich von
Volsprundt, 1460.—Das buch der wund Artzeny. Handwirckung
der Cirurgia von Jyeronimo brunschwick, 1508.—Das Feldtbuch
der Wundtartzney, by Hans von Gerssdorff, 1517.
(In Italy.) Avicennae opera, arabice, 1473.—Guillelmi de Saliceto cyrurgia, 1475. (A French translation was published at
