Evolution of the Ars medica and De febribus

Over 80 of the medical works in the Liddel Library are academic theses defended by students, with Liddel acting as praeses. Some of these formed the basis of Liddel’s published medical works, the Ars medica and De febribus. They show the evolution from a printed theses presented by Liddel’s students through the ‘proof’ copies of the same works but with different respondents with Liddel’s manuscript ‘proof’ notes to the final printed book.

In the first volume, each thesis is published individually, with a separate, full title page, pagination register and imprint. The second volume contains the same theses, word for word as before, but in this case the respondent has changed. Here, there are no individual title pages, only caption headings and the whole volume has a continuous register, indicating that the book was printed as a discreet item. This volume is extensively annotated and corrected by Liddel with section and chapter headings inserted. When these pages are compared to, in this example, De febribus, the whole of the print and manuscript are combined into one continuous text.

This is a rare, maybe unique, example of teaching works being used towards publication.