De Morbis Aulicis: On Diseases Found at Court

The treatise On the Health of Princes, which Bernardino Ramazzini, Professor of Medicine at Padua, published in 1710 has nowadays fallen into almost complete oblivion. ¹ It was not always so. Although he had to bear the costs of publication himself because the publisher was not convinced that the book was likely to sell well, despite the author’s reputation and standing, Ramazzini’s book in fact aroused great interest amongst royal body-physicians and court physicians generally, ² and was reprinted twice within two years. In 1724 there followed a French, and in 1753 even a Portuguese, translation, and its inclusion, from 1714 onwards, in the frequent reprintings of Ramazzini’s Complete Works brought it to a still wider readership.