Physical Impairment in the First Surgical Handbooks Printed in Germany

Summary

Chiara Benati

From a modern point of view, surgery represents a natural form of intervention against different forms of physical impairment and can alleviate infirmities if not heal them completely. Thus, early during the diagnostic phase of an affliction, one may consider whether an operation can be performed to alleviate the debilitating condition.

Yet the assumption that surgery represents the solution to pathologies resulting in lameness or blindness, for example, does not automatically seem valid for earlier stages in the history of medicine and surgery; for instance, during the late Middle Ages. The study of how various forms of physical impairment were treated as demonstrated in popular surgical handbooks of this era can help us ascertain what the relationship was between impairment and surgery as perceived by contemporaries, thus widening our view. Early sources in Germany include Hieronymus Brunschwig's Buch der Cirurgia and Hans von Gersdorff's Feldtbuch der Wundarzney, both of which will be discussed in this study.

Hieronymus Brunschwig's “Buch der Cirurgia”

The Buch der Cirurgia, Hantwirckung der wundartzny von Hyeronimo brunschwig, the first surgical handbook printed in German, was first published in folio on July 4, 1497, by the Strasbourg printer Johannes Grüninger. The first edition was soon followed by others:

1. December 1497, Augsburg, Hans Schönsperger, folio;

2. Das buch der wund // Artzeny. Handwirckung der Cirurgia…, “uff den Palmabent,” 1513, Strasbourg, Johannes Grüninger, folio;

3. 1534, Augsburg, Alexander Weyssenhorn, quarto; and, once again,

4. 1539, Augsburg, Alexander Weyssenhorn, quarto.