ORTUS SANITATIS DE HERBIS ET PLANTIS

Of plants, animals and uroscopy

This early work is an incunabulum. This printing technique involved positioning the letters and images on page after page, dying the template and printing onto paper. Incunabula emerged around the year 1500 when European book printing first began. This example was published as a third edition by Johann Prüss in Strasbourg in 1497. It is uncoloured, yet includes blank spaces for initials that were never applied.

The sequence of six chapters follows the themes mentioned in the title: First of all, it describes plants. "Tieren" or "animalia" are general references to four-legged animals as well as reptiles, birds and other flying creatures, fish and other aquatic creatures. The inanimate material includes stones such as minerals that form in the ground. It concludes with a treatise on uroscopy, the most popular method of diagnosis at the time.