Pinax Microcosmographicus

1667

Health Sciences Historical Collection WZ250 RH81 1667

Amsterdam: Ex typographia Pauli Matthiae

Johann Remmelin (1583–1632) was town physician of Ulm and Plague physician of Augsberg. Aware of the methods by which medicine and human anatomy were taught in seventeenth-century Western Europe, Remmelin involved himself in an innovative publishing venture: the superimposed flap book. He had supplied some images for an earlier book: Catoptrum microcosmicum, published in 1619. This scarce Dutch edition of his Pinax Microcosmographicus, printed in 1667, offers engravings of two anatomical figures and their veins, and male and female figures that could well be termed ‘Adam’ and ‘Eve’. The drawings done by Remmelin were rendered into engravings by the Augsburg artist Lucas Kilian (1579-1637).