925J Gabriel Naudé

Gabrielis Navdæi Parisini πentas  Quæstionum Iatro-philologicarum. An magnum homini à venenis periculum? II. An vita hominum hodie quàm olim breuior? III. An matutina studia vespertinis salubriora? IV. An liceat Medico fallere ægrotum? V. De fato & fatali vitæ termino

Genevæ, Apud Samuel Chouët 1647.                    Price $ 1,600

A historical title page featuring the title 'Gabrielis Navdaei Parisini Pentas Quæstionum Iatro-philosophicarum.' It includes several questions related to medicine and philosophy, printed in Latin, along with an ornate decorative element and publication details from Geneva in 1647.

Octavo 16 x 10 cm. Signatures: *4, A-X8. First edition bound in original limp vellum. 

First edition of Naudé’s Péntas Quaestionum, a collection of five philosophical-medical disputations at the intersection of medicine, ethics, and natural philosophy—written during his Genevan exile. Naudé, Mazarin’s librarian and the author of Apologie pour tous les grands hommes soupçonnés de magie (1625), applies his characteristic skeptical and libertine reasoning to questions that anticipate Enlightenment empiricism.

The treatise is structured as five “Iatro-philological” dialogues—a term Naudé coined to blend philology and medical reasoning. Topics include the physiological and moral consequences of poison (à venenis periculum), the perceived shortening of human life since antiquity, the hygienic advantages of early study hours, the ethical permissibility of a physician deceiving his patient for therapeutic benefit, and the metaphysical limits of fate and human longevity.   

An magnum homini à venenis periculum?
Is man truly in great danger from poisons?

An vita hominum hodie quàm olim brevior?
Is the human lifespan today shorter than in antiquity?

An matutina studia vespertinis salubriora?
Are morning studies healthier than evening ones?

An liceat Medico fallere aegrotum?
May a physician deceive the patient for his own good?

De fato et fatali vitæ termino.
On fate and the fatal limit of life.

 This work is a rare expression of medical libertinism—where moral philosophy and Galenic medicine meet Cartesian doubt. Naudé’s argumentation draws upon Seneca, Hippocrates, Galen, and Lucretius, but his method is modern: each question is posed as a hypothesis to be interrogated by reason and evidence.
His fourth question, “An liceat Medico fallere aegrotum?” (“May a physician deceive the sick man?”), anticipates later debates in medical ethics from La Mettrie to Diderot.

Caillet 7983; Brunet IV 13; Krivatsy 8142; Duveen p. 416; Wellcome IV 9