Ma’aseh Tuviah

COHN, TOBIAS.

Venice

1707

FIRST EDITION. Three parts in one. Title within architectural arch, on verso, fine engraved portrait of the Author by Antonio Luciani. Anatomical plate and numerous scientific text illustrations. Approbation from the Ecclesiastical Authorities on final page. Two divisional titles. The YIVO copy. Signature on title of Ben Zion the son of R. Yaakov Ettlinger (author of Aruch Laner), other inscriptions in Hebrew and German include: Zacharias Oppenheimer; Salamon Maimon Tobias and Elazar Levi ben HaRav HaGaon R. Zanvil Segal - stating the book was gifted to him by one Madam Adel (dated 1765, Neckarsulm, Germany). A wide-margined copy

Vinograd, Venice 1572; Garrison & Morton, Medical Bibliography 6496.1; Friedenwald, The Jews and Medicine - Catalogue (1946), pp. 59-60; Rubens 693

Celebrated encyclopedia of natural sciences, with a lexicon of pharmacological and botanical terms in Hebrew, Latin and Turkish and most significantly, an important section on medicine (including anatomy and gynecology). Includes discussions on the medical properties of tobacco, description of the "plica polonica" and an examination of the Magdeburg experiment on the vacuum. Also discusses the future Redemption and the theological and social consequences of the Sabbatian debacle (see ff. 24-29). The Author, Tobias Cohn (1652-1729) was born in Metz and raised by relatives in Cracow following his father's untimely death. He studied medicine in Italy at the University of Padua and went on to serve as a Court physician in Turkey. Ma'aseh Tuviah was written in Adrianople (today Edirne). See EJ, Vol. V, cols. 692-693; JE, Vol. IV, pp. 161-162 (incl. facs. of anatomical plate from Ma'aseh Tuviah, f.106r.)