Inspection of the Lepers

Hans von Gersdorff added to his Feldtbuch der Wundartzney, first published in Strasbourg in 1517, a treatise on leprosy as the third tractate, which includes two full-page woodcuts. One shows Job as a leper, the other illustrates the leprosy presentation in the longest subsection, Zeychen the Lepre. The most important task of medical science was not treatment and cure, but the reliable recognition of leprosy in order to enable the exposure and care of the "true lepers" and to hinder the "false" ones. The "Inspection of the Lepers" thus refers less to the history of the diagnosis initiating a cure on behalf of the sick person than to a medical appraisal commissioned by the authorities and the state. The caption of the 1551 edition quoted here differs from that of the first edition: "Besehung der Aussetzigen.Blut/Harn/Knoll/Drüsen zeigen an/Das dieser ist ein Malzig man/Darumb weißt ihn zur Stade hinauß/Und bauet im auf dass Felde ein Hauß."

Inspection of the Lepers, woodcut, 1551, artist unknown, in: Hans von Gerdorff: Feldtbuch der Wundartzney. Sampt des Menschen Cörpers Anatomey, unnd Chirurgischen Instrumenten, wahrhafftig Abcontrafeyt, und beschrieben ..., Frankfurt am Main 1551, folio LXXX verso; source: Wellcome Library, London, https://wellcomecollection.org/works/tx8xjdug, Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.