• Source: Lorenz Fries

      • Lorenz Fries, also called Lorenz Phryes, Latinized Laurentius Frisius or Phrisius (born around 1490; died 1531/32 in Metz) was a German physician, astrologer and cartographer, who worked mainly in Alsace. His most famous work is the “Spiegel der Arznei” (Mirror of Medicine) (twelve editions 1518–1557), one of the earliest works on medicine in the German language.


      Life and work



      The date and place of birth of Lorenz Fries cannot be determined with certainty. Possible birth dates discussed include: “around 1485”, 10 August 1489 or “after 1490” Possible places of birth were given as: Mulhouse or Colmar, Metz, Swabia (Markgröningen). Sudhoff (1904) and Öhlschlägel (1985) have suggested that Fries studied in Padua, Piacenza, Montpellier and Vienna, where he probably completed his studies. There is no direct evidence for this.: 191 
      Fries’ name first appeared in 1513 on a Nuremberg broadsheet describing a monstrous birth near Rome.: 191  At the end of 1518 he lived in the Augustinian monastery in Colmar. He practiced medicine in Colmar until about 1519-1519.: 191  On the title page of the first edition of the “Spiegel der Arznei” in 1518 he called himself “from Colmar / Doctor of Philopsophy and Medicine”. He dedicated this work to Johann Dingler, the Schlettstadt (Sélestat) guild master of the fishermen.
      In March 1519, Fries moved to Strasbourg. In July of the same year, he accepted a call to Freiburg im Üechtland, where he held the office of city physician for 8 months and where he met Agrippa von Nettesheim. In the middle of 1520, he returned to Strasbourg and married Barbara Thun, the daughter of the deceased Strasbourg master glazier Ambrosius Thun. Fries thus became a citizen of Strasbourg.: 192–193  He also became a member of the guild "Zur Steltz" (goldsmiths and printers). While in Strasbourg, he re-worked a number of the maps of Martin Waldseemüller, and prepared a revised edition of Ptolemy's Geography. In May 1525, Fries gave up his Strasbourg citizenship and left the city, moving to Metz. This was probably because Strasbourg was increasingly a protestant city, and Fries remained an adherent of the Roman Church.: 203 
      Until the winter of 1528, he stayed in Trier, where he worked as a doctor. On February 28, 1528, Paracelsus, who had fled from Basel, wrote to Bonifacius Amerbach: "Phrusius de Colmaria optime valet, sumque optimus familiae et totam civitatem". ("Fries von Colmar is in the best of health, and I have been well received by his family and the whole city.") In July 1528, Fries wrote a "Prognostication" for the year 1529 in Diedenhofen (Thionville). In Metz he created a French-language "Prognostication" for the year 1529 in October 1528 and on November 14, 1528 a birth horoscope for his friend Nicolas de Heu (1494–1547), the mayor of Metz. In the 1532 edition of "Spiegel der Arznei" printed by Balthasar Beck in Strasbourg, a foreword by Lorenz Fries was printed, which he had written on July 23, 1530 in Metz. In it he noted in passing: "... Let me, God, live for a short time ..." Another foreword in the same edition was written on May 14, 1532 by Otto Brunfels. It said: “... therefore the author of this book, the highly renowned doctor Laurentius Fries, was commissioned to correct this before his death...” From these statements it was concluded that Fries died between July 1530 and May 1532.
      There waas a "long-standing friendship" between Fries and the Strasbourg printer and publisher Johannes Grüninger, who published the majority of his works.


      Writings




























































      Wundergeburt zu Rom vom 7. March 1513. (Miraculous Birth in Rome on March 7, 1513). Einblattdruck (single sheet print). Johann Weissenburger, Nürnberg 1513
      Spiegel der Artzny […] (Mirror of Medicine). Printed in twelve editions by various publishers from 1518 to 1557 and edited from 1529 by the humanist Otto Brunfels.
      Traktat der Wildbäder Natur. Joh. Grüninger, Strasbourg 24. July 1519; Bartholomäus Grüninger, Strasbourg 1538.
      Synonyma und gerecht ußlegung der wörter so man in der artzny, allen Krütern, Wurtzlen, Bluomen, Somen, Gesteinen, Safften und anderen Dingen zuo schreiben ist […]. Joh. Grüninger, Strasbourg 29. November 1519; Barth. Grüninger, Strasbourg 1535. ynonym index of simple medicines in Latin, Hebrew, Greek, Arabic and German based on the Mainz Gart der Gesundheit from 1485 and the Kleines Destillierbuch.
      Kurze Schirmred der Kunst der Astrologiae (Brief defence of the art of astrology). Joh. Grüninger, Strasbourg 28. November 1520
      Claudii Ptolemaei / Alexandrini Mathematicor. principis. Opus Geographie. Joh. Grüninger, Strasbourg 12. March 1522, 30. März 1525.
      Auslegung und Gebrauch des Astrolabs (Interpretation and Use of the Astrolabe). Joh. Grüninger, Strasbourg 23. June 1522. – Expositio et usus astrolabii. Joh. Grüninger, Strasbourg 7. September 1522.
      Prognostikationen: 1523, 1524, 1525 (Judenpractica), 1526, 1529, 1530, 1531
      Ars memorativa. Joh. Grüninger, Strasbourg 7. März 1523. – Ein kurzzer Bericht wie man die Gedechtnisz […] stercken mag. Joh. Grüninger, Strasbourg 12. März 1523.
      Wie man alte Schäden mit dem Holz Guaiaco heilen soll. Joh. Grüninger, Strasbourg 7. January 1525; Johann Prüss, Strasbourg 1530 und 1539.
      Niederländische Übersetzung: Een grondelike bestendighe heylsame cure der grousamigher Pocken. Symon Cock, Antwerpen 1548 und Peter Warnerson, Kampen 1566.
      The 1525 and 1530 editions are anonymous. Only the 1539 edition names Fries as the author. Karl Sudhoff (1904, p. 771) assumed that Fries wrote all these syphilis writings – the physician, librarian and medical historian Ernest Wickersheimer (1880–1965) doubted Fries' authorship of all editions.
      Auslegung der Meerkarten (von Martin Waldseemüller). Joh. Grüninger, Strasbourg 2. März 1525, 3. Juni 1527, Carta Marina Navigatoria 22. April 1530. Around 1525, Fries was probably the first to coin the German term “Karte”.
      Carta Marina Navigatoria Portugalien Navigationes : atque tocius cogniti orbis terrae marisque formae naturam situm et terminos noviter recognitos et ab antiquorum traditione differentes hec generaliter monstrat, 1525 Joh. Grüninger, Strasbourg 1530 (digitized copy)
      Zusammen mit Johannes Nidepontanus (Metz): Sudor anglicus. Joh. Knobloch d. J., Strasbourg 1529. Fries reported, among other things, about an epidemic in Freiburg im Üechtland in 1519, which he interpreted as an outbreak of the Sudor anglicus.
      Defensio medicorum Principis Avicennae ad Germaniae medicos. Johann Knobloch. d. J., Strasbourg 24. August 1530
      Epitome opusculi de curandis pusculis. Henricus Petrus, Basel 1532
      Liber De Morbo Gallico : In Qvo Diuersi celeberrimi in tali materia scribentes, medicine contine[n]tur auctores videlicet. Nicolavs Leonicenus Vicentinus. Vlrichvs De Hvtten Germanus. Petrvs Andreas Mattheolo Senensis. Lavrentivs Phrisius. Ioannis Almenar Hispanus... Cremer, Venedig 1535 (digitized copy)


      Spiegel der Arznei


      Fries' main work, the Mirror of Medicine, was printed in twelve editions by three publishers from 1518 to 1557 and edited from 1529 by the humanist Otto Brunfels. The first print appeared on September 1, 1518.


      = The editions

      =






















      Three editions published by Johannes Grüninger, Strasbourg: 1. September 1518; 1. September 1519; 17. March 1529
      In 1529 the publisher Balthasar Beck had the Spiegel der Arzney edited by Otto Brunfels in Strasbourg. Three editions of this version were printed: August 18, 1529, March 14, 1532 and 1546.
      In 1542, Johann Dryander prepared a new edition of Fries's Spiegel, added a short anatomy section and published it under the title Der ganzen Arznei gemeiner Inhalt with the publisher Christian Egenolph in Frankfurt. In 1547, Dryander added a section on surgery. For this, he used the German translation of the Kleine Wundarznei by Lanfranc of Milan, which had been prepared in 1528 by Otto Brunfels and printed by Christian Egenolph. Two further editions of the Mirror appeared in this form: 1547 and 1557.
      The library of the Zürcher Medizinhistorischen Instituts (Zurich Institute of the History of Medicine) has two double folios in which the Spiegel der Arznei and the Kreuterbuch by Eucharius Rösslin have been bound together since the 16th century:

      1st double folio: Spiegel der Arznei 1532 and Kreuterbuch 1533.
      2nd double folio: Spiegel der Arznei 1546 and Kreuterbuch 1550.


      = The sources

      =

      Following the introduction, Fries lists his sources. It is hardly possible and no attempt has yet been made to list all of these sources in the Spiegel. The main source can be assumed to be Avicenna's Canon of Medicine, which - based in particular on Galen - gives a general overview of what we today call "internal medicine".


      = Target audience and German-Latin language dispute

      =
      The Mirror was a popular representation of the whole of "internal medicine". The title page of the first edition in 1518 claimed to be the first work on medicine in the German language. However, Der Spiegel was not the first work in German with medical content. The Arzneibuch by the Würzburg surgeon Ortolf von Baierland (1477) is worth mentioning, also the Gart der Gesundheit of the Frankfurt city doctor Johann Wonnecke von Kaub (1485), the Buch der Cirurgia (1497), and the Kleines Destillierbuch (1500) and the Großes Destillierbuch (1512) of the Strasbourg surgeon Hieronymus Brunschwig. Like Fries in his Spiegel der Arznei, Hieronymus Brunschwig also emphasized in his Kleines Destillierbuch that he had written his work to educate the sick and the "common paople". But the printed books were expensive and their use presupposed that the buyers could read. The Mirror of Medicine can be classified in the category of household literature. However, his writings in the vernacular and rejection of the tradition of medical writing in latin brought Fries bitter opposition from the "learned doctors":

      [this work] for which I have suffered much, is greatly hated and persecuted by the learned doctors, because I have revealed the content of this art to German tongues.


      Works cited


      Gerhard Baader: Medizinisches Reformdenken und Arabismus im Deutschland des 16. Jahrhunderts. … Lorenz Fries, der Verteidiger des Arabismus. In: Sudhoffs Archiv. Volume 63, Issue 3, 1979, pp. 287–289.
      Karl Baas: Studien zur Geschichte des mittelalterlichen Medizinalwesens in Colmar. In: Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins. Volume 61, 1907 (New Series, Volume 22), pp. 217–246, cited section: pp. 230–234.
      Josef Benzing: Bibliographie der Schriften des Colmarer Arztes Lorenz Fries. In: Philobiblon. Neue Folge. Volume 6, 1962, pp. 120–140.
      Karl Bittel: Lorenz Fries und andere Elsässer Ärzte um 1500. In: Straßburger Monatshefte. Volume 7, 1943, pp. 467–472.
      Karl Bittel: Die Elsässer Zeit des Paracelsus, Hohenheims Wirken in Straßburg und Kolmar, sowie seine Beziehungen zu Lorenz Fries. In: Elsaß-Lothringisches Jahrbuch. Volume 21, 1943, pp. 157–186.
      Jean Michel Friedrich. Laurent Fries, médecin, astrologue et géographe de la Renaissance à Colmar, Strasbourg et Metz. Medizinische Dissertation Straßburg 1980.
      Werner E. Gerabek: Fries [Friesz, Frisius, Frise, Phries, Phryes, Phrisius], Lorenz. In: Werner E. Gerabek, Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil, Wolfgang Wegner (Hrsg.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4, pp. 441.
      Rudolf Christian Ludwig Öhlschlegel: Studien zu Lorenz Fries und seinem „Spiegel der Arznei“. Medizinische Dissertation Tübingen 1985.
      Charles Schmidt: Laurent Fries de Colmar, médecin, astrologue, géographe à Strasbourg et à Metz. In: Annales de l’est. Revue trimestrielle publiée sous la direction de la Faculté des Lettres de Nancy. 4, 1890, pp. 523–575 (digitized copy).
      Karl Sudhoff: Ein Kapitel aus der Geschichte der Setzerwillkür im XVI. Jahrhundert. In: Zeitschrift für Bücherfreunde. 6, 1902/1903, pp. 79–81 (digitized copy), und in: Sudhoffs Archiv. Volume 21, 1929, pp. 117–120.
      Karl Sudhoff (1904), "Fries, Lorenz", Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 49, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 770–775
      Joachim Telle: Wissenschaft und Öffentlichkeit im Spiegel der deutschen Arzneibuchliteratur. Zum deutsch-lateinischen Sprachenstreit in der Medizin des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts. In: Medizinhistorisches Journal. Volume 14, 1979, pp. 32–52
      Joachim Telle: Arzneikunst und der „gemeine Mann“. Zum deutsch-lateinischen Sprachenstreit in der frühneuzeitlichen Medizin. In: Pharmazie und der gemeine Mann. Hausarznei und Apotheke in den deutschen Schriften der frühen Neuzeit. Wolfenbüttel 1982, ISBN 3-88373-032-7, pp. 43–48.
      Ernest Wickersheimer: Deux régimes de santé: Laurent Fries et Simon Reichwein à Robert de Monreal, abbé d'Echternach de 1506 à 1539. In: Hémecht. Zeitschrift für Luxemburger Geschichte. Revue d'histoire luxembourgeoise. 10/1, 1957, pp. 59–71. (Separatdruck: Saint-Paul, Luxemburg 1957).


      References




      External links



      Karl Sudhoff. Lorenz Fries. Allgemeine deutsche Biographie. Bd. 49, Leipzig 1904, 770-775 digitized copy
      Ernest Wickersheimer (1961), "Fries, Lorenz", Neue Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 5, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 609–610; (full text online)

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