Female Hydra or the Hysterical Passion: With 150 medicines. No U.S. copies.
[Women] / [Medicine] / Antonio Tattoni. Hydra Muliebris, ab Hercule medico expurganda, Sive Hysterica Passio, Multis Symptomatum capitibus arietans, opera excellentissimi, publici medicinae professoris, D. Antonii Tactonii discussa, descripta, & publico iuri exposita. Anno redemptoris M.DC.XCVII. Ancona: Ex Typographia Camerali, 1697 [corrected in manuscript from ‘1567’]. 4to [20.9 x 15.2 cm], 148 pp., without final two blanks, with woodcut title vignette, head-pieces, initials, and tail-pieces.
[Bound with:] Antonio Tattoni. Trina Medico Apologaetica Dissertatio. Ancona: Ex Typographia Camerali, 1695. 4to [20.9 x 15.2 cm], 65 pp., without pp. 11-14 (bifolium B2-B3; apparently long absent given that a contemporary marginal annotation remarks on the missing text), with woodcut title vignette, head-pieces, initials, and tail-pieces. Bound in contemporary calf, blind borders to covers. Covers a bit bumped, minor rubbing and edge wear, red sprinkled edges. Edge toning, the occasional minor stain.
Very rare (no U.S. copies) first and only edition of this 17th-century Latin treatise on female hysteria. The work’s title might be translated, “The Female Hydra, to be purged by the physician Hercules, or the Hysterical Passion, ramming with many-headed symptoms.” Published in Ancona, the Hydra Muliebris is by the physician Antonio Tattoni (1641-1716), who sees the condition of hysteria as multifaceted, shifting and to be treated only with a varied battery of remedies, of which he gives more than 150 recipes.
The work begins with an anonymous case study of “Illustrissima Domina N. N.,” in which Tattoni introduces characteristics of female hysteria, providing its description, causes, prognosis, and therapeutics.
The second part is given to full descriptions of medicines that might be used to treat each of the many types of hysteria, including aperitifs, essences, vitriols, waters, balms, elixirs, spirits, wines, infusions, decoctions, extracts, pills, powders, plasters, etc., composed of a bewildering variety of ingredients.
Bound with the Hydra Muliebris is Tattoni’s 1695 Trina Medico Apologaetica Dissertatio in which he presents case studies (of named patients) suffering from urological problems, kidney troubles, paralysis, etc.
OPAC/ICCU/SBN, OCLC, and KVK locate no U.S. copies of these works, which are also rare in European census.
*IT\ICCU\RLZE\016436 & IT\ICCU\BVEE\033855 (Hydra Muliebris); IT\ICCU\ANAE\014049 (Trina Medico Apologaetica Dissertatio).