Historical and Critical Library of Rare Physical and Medical Books

followed him; (a) if you add to these the most learned DAVID CLEMENT, an outstanding ornament of our age, who has recently been fighting strenuously and laudably in this arena, you have the means by which you will be able to make yourself familiar with books of every age and language that are most distinguished by their rarity.

But in truth, those who have methodically collected and published the rare writers of a certain discipline or science are either completely non-existent or, at the very least, very few. I have therefore judged that I would not be doing wrongly if I performed this service for my own healing art, and if I brought into the public view, through different specimens and illustrated by various historical-critical and sometimes perhaps physico-medical annotations, books pertaining to this field that are very difficult to find and obtain, that occur less frequently, that are handled by very few hands, and which I myself have collected and will collect in the future if the Highest Deity grants me life, or which I have at least examined in public and private libraries. It is not for me now to demonstrate the utility of this institute at greater length, nor to give axioms about such books. For the first part has already been satisfied in some measure by the Most Reverend Man, most famous for his writings illustrating both the sacred and literary republic, ERNESTUS LUDOVICUS RATHLEF, (b) and who

(a) I refer to the Historical-Critical Catalog of Rare Books, new edition, Hamburg 1747. 8vo.
(b) See his History of Living Scholars, Volume V, p. 190, where among other things: "one could, however, make a far more useful type of such collections of rare books than the previous ones have been, if one were to [collect] from every..."