[On two antique medical texts]

The two texts presented here--Regimento proueytoso contra ha pestenença [literally, "useful regime against pestilence"] and Modus curandi cum balsamo ["curing method using balm"]--represent the extent of Portugal's known medical library until circa 1530, produced in gothic letters by foreign printers: Germany's Valentim Fernandes, perhaps the era's most important printer, who worked in Lisbon between 1495 and 1518, and Germdo Galharde, a Frenchman who practiced his trade in Lisbon and Coimbra between 1519 and 1560. Modus curandi, which came to light in 1974 thanks to bibliophile José de Pina Martins, is anonymous. Johannes Jacobi is believed to be the author of Regimento proueytoso, which was translated into Latin (Regimen contra pestilentiam), French, and English. Both texts are presented here in facsimile and in modern Portuguese, while the first has also been reproduced in archaic Portuguese using modern typographical characters. This philological venture into sixteenth-century medicine is supplemented by a scholarly glossary which serves as a valuable tool in interpreting not only Regimento proueytoso but also other texts from the era. Two articles place these documents in historical perspective.