Fasciculus medicie [sic] : praxis tam chirurgis quam etiam physicis maxime necessaria, consumatissimi artium, & medicine doctoris Ioannis de Ketam alemani, fasciculus medicine nuncupata, que in duodecim singularissimos tractatus distinguitur, ut infra inspicienti patet, uidelicet: De iudiciis urinarum. De flobothomia. De cautellis uenarum. De membris genitalibus. De problematibus. De chyrugia. De egritudinibus particu. De peste coiter euitanda. Mundini usualis anatho. Allexa[n]dri Achillini anath. De egritudinibus puero. De uenenis oåibus minera : que omnia post nouissimam Venetam intelligibilem impressionem ... collatis multis exemplaribus, adamussim fuere recognita, cunctisq; mendis, & erroribus, quibus undiq; scatebant, expurgata : adiectis denuo in Mundini anathomiam Allexandri Achillini Bononiensis annotationibus, necnon insigni tractatu de uenenis mineralibus, & aliis multis, que in eadem mendosa impressione deerant ...
Before its publication at Venice in 1491, the Fasciculus medicinæ of Johannes de Ketham, about whom little is known, circulated widely in manuscript throughout the fifteenth century. It is the earliest printed book to include anatomical illustration of any significance. The anatomy displayed in the six full-page woodcut illustrations is medieval in character, and contributed little to the advancement of anatomical knowledge, but the woodcuts do exhibit the conditions from which modern medicine arose. Each section has a traditional diagram: urine glasses arranged in a circle; a male figure marked with the sites for bloodletting; drawings showing parts of the body governed by constellations and the zodiac. The work was re-issued in 1493 in an Italian translation. To this latter edition were added four full-page woodcut illustrations, attributed to an artist from the school of Gentile Bellini. They represent scenes of medical practice in fifteenth-century Venice, including one of a dissection in progress, which has often been reproduced. The Fasciculus was a popular work, being re-issued in Latin in 1495, 1500 (two editions), 1508, 1509, 1512, 1513 and 1522. It was also translated into Spanish (1495 and 1517), and again into Italian (1522). A facsimile of the 1491 edition, with commentary, was published in 1924. The primitive state of anatomical knowledge at that time is shown in the zodiacal depiction of the man (leaf 7r) and the woman (leaf 7v). The plate of a dissection in progress, added for the first time in 1493, is found on leaf 27r.
