Leonhart Fuchs - Publications

Publications

• Errata recentiorum medicorum ("Errors of recent doctors") (Hagenau, 1530), his first publication, in which he argued for the use of "simples" (herbs) rather than the noxious "compounds" of arcane ingredients concocted in medieval medicine.

• De historia stirpium commentarii insignes ("Notable commentaries on the history of plants", Basel, 1542), his great herbal, which was offered, with varying degrees of fidelity to his text, as "New Kreüterbuch" in a German translation (1543), "New Herbal" in English, "Den nieuwen Herbarius, dat is dat boeck van den cruyden" (1543) in Dutch.

Fuchs tried to identify the plants described by the classical authors. Over a decade, Fuchs began to prepare for the publication of his herbal. He stocked the garden attached to his house with rare specimens solicited from friends around Europe, and he assembled a large botanical library. The book contains the description of about 400 wild and more than 100 domesticated plant species and their medical uses ("Krafft und Würckung") in alphabetical order: Fuchs made no attempt at presenting them in a natural system of classification. The first reports of Zea mays and of chilli peppers were among the exotic new species The text is mainly based on Dioscorides. The book contains 512 pictures of plants, largely growing locally, in woodcuts. The illustrators were Heinrich Füllmauer and Albert Meyer, the woodcutter Veit Rudolph Speckle, portraits of whom are contained in the volume. It was printed at the famous shop of Michael Isengrin in Basel. Its appeal to gardeners, botanists, bibliophiles, and the casual viewer was immediate, while the clarity of its plant pictures continues to define a standard for botanical illustrators.

• Eyn Newes hochnutzlichs Büchlin/und Anothomi eynes auffgethonen augs/auch seiner erklärung bewerten purgation/Pflaster/Tollirien/Sälblin pulvern unnd wassern/wie mans machen und brauchen sol (A new, very useful book and anatomy of the open eye/also an explanation of useful purgatives/plasters/poultices/salves, powders and waters/how one should make and use them), 1539.

• Alle Kranckheyt der Augen (All diseases of the eye), 1539.

Fuchs's books on the anatomy of the eye and its diseases were among the standard references on this subject during this period.

• All in all, Leonhart Fuchs wrote more than 50 books and polemics.

The standard author abbreviation L.Fuchs is used to indicate this individual as the author when citing a botanical name.