Specimen of a Historical and Critical Library of Rare Physical and Medical Books

followed him; (a) if you add to these the most learned DAVID CLEMENT, an excellent ornament of our age, who has recently been striving in this arena with vigor and praise, you have the means to make the most notable books of every age and language familiar to yourself.

But indeed, those who have collected by plan the rare writers of a certain discipline or science and made them public property are either non-existent or very few. Therefore, I judged that I would not be acting incorrectly if I performed this service for my own salutary art, and brought into the public view, through various specimens, the books looking toward this end—books difficult to find and obtain, which occur less frequently, which are handled by very few hands, and which I have either collected myself and shall collect in the future (if the Supreme Deity grants me life), or have at least examined in public and private libraries—and illustrated them here and there with historical-critical, and sometimes perhaps physico-medical, annotations. It is not my place now to demonstrate the utility of this institute at length, nor to provide axioms regarding such books. For the most Reverend Man, celebrated for his writings illustrating both the sacred and literary republic, ERNESTUS LUDOVICUS RATHLEF, has already in some part satisfied this formerly (b), and who

(a) I refer to the Historical-critical Catalog of Rare Books, most recent edition. Hamburg 1747. 8vo.
(b) See his History of Living Scholars, Vol. V, p. 190, where among other things: one could make a far more useful kind of such collections of rare books than the ones existing heretofore, if one provided such special lists for every science. etc.