The rarest edition of one of the most interesting Hebrew medical and scientific works from these times. The work is encyclopedic, and is divided as follows: Theology; astronomy; medicine; hygiene; syphilitic diseases; botany; cosmography and an essay on the four elements. The most important is the medical part which contains an illustration showing a human body and a house side by side and comparing the members of the former to the parts of the latter.

"The only significantly illustrated early book on medicine in Hebrew. This is an encyclopaedia, of which approximately half concerns medicine. One of the first Jews from the Eastern ghetto to obtain a medical education at a German university, Cohn completed his degree at Padua, and served as court physician to the Turkish Sultan." (Morton's Medical Bibliography, Fifth Edition, Edited by Jeremy M. Norman. The quoted excerpt was written about the 1708 edition of Ma'aseh Tuviyyah.)

Rare Text Images Home   Human Body Home

© 2000 University of Kansas Medical Center Comments: clendening@kumc.edu Revised: June 18, 2004