First edition of Spanish physician Miguel Marcelino Boix y Moliner's first book, a defense of Hippocratic medicine and rejection of Galenism, composed when the author was in his seventies. The work distanced him from colleagues at Madrid, where he had already been under fire for practicing both medicine and surgery. Boix y Moliner had cofounded the Regia Sociedad de Medicina in Seville, with Juan de Cabriada and Diego Mateo Zapata, who shared his Hipporatic views. Boix y Moliner thought that Galen had misunderstood Hippocrates, and sought a new interpretation, based on strict clinical observations. He supports his "new" Hippocratism with citations from Bacon, Sydenham, and others, but tended to take his views to extremes, rejecting at length drug therapies for disease in an era in Spain where a pharmacological revolution was underway. Hippocrates defendido is a complex work, at once a theoretical treatise and a practical handbook, with a number of curious references to medicine in the Americas. Boix y Moliner would follow up with two more works in 1713 and 1716, forming a kind of trilogy. In his last  work, Hippocrates alcarado, Boix y Moliner famously celebrates the 16th-century female physician Olivia Sabuco de Nantes. Ours is a good exemplar in contemporary vellum. Two copies located in American libraries (Burndy and Huntington).

Full title: HIPPOCRATES | DEFENDIDO, | DE LAS IMPOSTURAS, Y CALUMNIAS, | que algunos Medicos poco cautos le | imputan: || EN PARTICULAR EN LA CURACION | de las enfermedades agudas: pues haſta aora todavia | se ignora como las curava: con ſola la Expoſicion, | ò Comento del primer Aphoriſmo: Vita | brevis, Ars vero longa, &c. || POR EL DOCT. D. MIGVEL MARGELINO BOIX | y Moliner: Natural de las Cuebas de Vim Roma, Cabeça de la Enco- | mienda Mayor de la Orden de Monteſa, Reyno de Valencia:  Colegial | que fue del Inſigne de S. Geronimo de los Trilingues, y Cathedratico |  de Medicina en la Vniverſidad de Alcalà de Henares: Socio, y Fun | dador de la Regis Academia de Sevilla; y al preſente Medico | Honorario de la Camara de su Mageſtad, que | Dios guarde. || DIRIGIDO || AL SEÑOR DON PEDRO CAYETANO FERNANDEZ | del Campo Augùlo y Velaſco: Marquès de Mejotada, y de la Breña: | Comendador de la Peralada en la Orden de Alcantara: Gentil- | Hombre de Camara de ſu Mageſtad, de ſu Conſejo, | y Secretario de Eſtado, y del Deſpacho | Vniverſal. | [Rule] | CON PRIVILEGIO: En Madrid por Matheo Blanco, Año 1711. | [Rule]

Madrid: Matheo Blanco, 1711.

Quarto 190 x 115 x 21 mm (binding), 190 x 115 x 21 mm (text block). §-8§⁴, A-3X⁴; [64], 512, [24] pp. Contemporary vellum, titled in ink on spine: BOIX | Hippocrate | Defendidio | 1711. Vellum worn and soiled, but structurally sound with ties intac. Interior: Leaves toned, a few dog-eared leaves, scatttered period annotations in ink. An entirely unsophisticated copy.

Item #270