(RIBEIRO SANCHES, ANTONIO NUNES). Tratado da Conservaçao da Saude dos Povos [“Treatise on Conservaton of Health of People.”]

Of Marrano stock, Antonio Nunes Ribeiro Sanches (1699-1783) returned to Judaism as a young man. Thereafter, he abandoned his native Portugal and after a somewhat rootless period, finally settled in Holland, where he studied medicine at the University of Leiden. In later years he was called to serve as medical physician at the Royal Court in St. Petersburg, but was later summarily dismissed likely due to his identification with Judaism. The present work is a pioneering study on the importance of hygiene to prevent or contain the spread of epidemics, with particular attention paid to the effect of environment and climate, in which the author also discusses the climates of Brazil and Africa. The final portion of the book is devoted to the history of earthquakes, culminating with the Great Lisbon Earthquake of November 1, 1755 (pp. 161-293). Although Sanchez's Marrano identity forced him into exile, his work had a great influence on Portuguese medicine in the second half of the 18th-century. See J.L. Doria, "Antonio Ribeira Sanches: A Portuguese Doctor in 18th-Century Europe," Vesalius, VII,1 (2001); M. Maestri, "Antonio Sanches: a voz angustiada de um cristão-novo de judeu abolicionista," Ciencias Humanas, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Dec. 2008–Jan.2009); JE, Vol. XI, pp. 37-38; H. Friedenwald, The Jews and Medicine, Vol. II, pp. 757-58. For two manuscripts relating to Antonio Nunes Ribeiro Sanches, see Lots 55 and 56