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A: Altstadt, Mainz, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany

The Aderlasskalender, the First Known Medical or Scientific Work to be Printed, Surviving in Only One Copy

1456
A bloodletting calendar printed between 1528 and 1530: Wes man sich ieglicher zeit / nach warer Influentz himlischer Gestirn / Planeten unnd Zeychen / zühalten hab / Dabei vonn der Aderlaße / unnd anderen der Natur notwendigen übungen [How to maintain (health) at any time, according to the influence of the celestial stars, planets and signs, by means of bloodletting and other exercises necessary to Nature.] Broadsheet, printed on one side in black letter type. Woodcut illustrations. Strasburg: Christian Egenolph, n.d. [ca. 1528-30]. 285 x 405 mm. The stub on the right is evidence that this ephemeral sheet survived by being bound into a book, from which it was later removed.
Creative Commons LicenseJeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons
A bloodletting calendar printed between 1528 and 1530: Wes man sich ieglicher zeit / nach warer Influentz himlischer Gestirn / Planeten unnd Zeychen / zühalten hab / Dabei vonn der Aderlaße / unnd anderen der Natur notwendigen übungen [How to maintain (health) at any time, according to the influence of the celestial stars, planets and signs, by means of bloodletting and other exercises necessary to Nature.] Broadsheet, printed on one side in black letter type. Woodcut illustrations. Strasburg: Christian Egenolph, n.d. [ca. 1528-30]. 285 x 405 mm. The stub on the right is evidence that this ephemeral sheet survived by being bound into a book, from which it was later removed.

The Aderlasskalender for the year 1457, also known as the Laxierkalender, was issued in Mainz, printed in the type of the 36-line Bible, presumably in 1456. It survives in only one incomplete copy in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (ISTC No. ia00051700).

"Bleeding- and purgation-calendars, which gave details of the lucky and unlucky days on which to bleed or take medicine in a given year, were popular in the Middle Ages. They maintained their popularity with the coming of the printed book. According to Osler, 'forty-six of these bleeding-and purgation-calendars were printed before 1480; one hundred of them before 1501 have been collected. . . .' The Mainz Kalendar for 1457 is much more a purgation-than a bleeding-calendar" (Berry & Poole, Annals of Printing [1966] 13).

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