FORESTUS, Petrus.

A rare and important complete set of this epic set of case notes and cures, the thirty-two books of the Observationes et curationes, with an additional two works on surgery, by the ‘Dutch Hippocrates’ Pieter van Foreest (1521-97), aka Forestus. First published from 1584, these were issued separately and so appear here as mixed editions, but it is extremely rare to find a complete set, especially in such good condition and in the original bindings. ‘[Forestus’s] writing … combines scholarly precision with a liveliness of description that few of his contemporaries can match. He portrays the humour of the world as well as its sorrows, and his sympathy for all those caught up in an age of war and destruction, not least in his native Netherlands, shines through his pages’ (Vivien Nutton, ‘Peter Van Foreest’ in Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 72.1 (2017), p. 88).

Containing I: van Foreest’s three works on fevers, the last of which is on plagues. II: on conditions affecting the head, and of the eyes, nose, tongue, teeth, etc. III: on the heart, liver, stomach, and intestines. IV: on the kidneys and bladder, with Johannes Heurnius’s (1543-1601) stoical treatise on human happiness (De humana felicitate), on male genitalia, and women’s diseases. V: on arthritis and other diseases affecting the extremities, on poisons and cosmetics, and syphilis. VI: two works on surgical procedures, the first on tumours and the second on wounds, ulcers, fractures and dislocations.

Each work is a series of observations and cures. Some, as is the case with poisonous animal bites, are simply cures borrowed from other sources, but the vast majority of the texts selected for comment are from van Foreest’s own case notes; the work on epidemic fevers, for example, opens with an outbreak in his native Alkmaar in 1557, and many describe cases from Delft, where he worked. The cases are followed by scholia or theoretical elucidations on the illness described, some very long, with references to ancient Greek authorities, Galen, Hippocrates and Aetius, as well as medieval Arabic and modern physicians, etc. The two surgical works are significant for the changing status of the discipline in the period: in these van Foreest attempted to bring the surgical discipline within the remit of the physician, employing his extensive experience of working alongside surgeons, while also emphasising the physician’s superiority over his surgical colleagues, as Nutton notes: ‘Van Foreest’s message is simple. Surgeons can make mistakes that only a physician can prevent or rectify (p. 93). This is also the case when van Foreest addresses dental conditions and venereal diseases including syphilis.

Of particular interest is the work on cosmetics, since it describes some of the beauty standards of the period. Van Foreest describes patches and spots used to cover facial blemishes, cures for scarring, whitening of the teeth and hands, curing baldness, and obesity and emaciation. It also displays Van Foreest’s humorous and sometimes satirical bent: he tells us that in Venice, in preparation for the wedding night with their husbands, young brides will drink milk mixed with wheat, lie in bed during the day and avoid fresh air, and eat sweet and rich foods in order to achieve a desirable weight.

Van Foreest studied medicine in Italy, at Bologna, Padua, Venice and Ferrara, before working in Rome and Paris. In 1558 he became city physician of Delft and remained there for almost forty years, before returning to Alkmaar; many of the volumes contain prefaces addressed to the ‘senate and peoples’ of various cities in the Dutch Republic. In 1575 he was invited by the Curators of the newly founded Leiden University to participate in the opening commemoration ceremonies, as attested by a few of the laudatory poems in these volumes, and even seems to have been made the honorary first professor of medicine, though he contributed little or nothing to the university thereafter. The first work in the fourth volume, on kidneys, contains an epitaph and poems for his deceased wife Eva van Teijlingen (1525-95).