MEDVERSATION^®

Printing Press and Books

The next major advance in scientific communication was the development of the printing press more than 500 years ago in Germany. The first mass-produced books, like the handwritten ones, were in Latin, the language of the clerics and the intelligentsia. The first illustrated medical textbook was printed in 1495⁷ and a recent issue of JAMA has reproduced several wood cuts from the text. Johannes de Ketham was the author of Fasciculus Medicine which was printed in Venice. It included descriptions of various common diagnostic and therapeutic procedures such as blood letting, urine examination, pregnancy care, and behavior during epidemics. As more books became available and education spread to the masses, books were written in the common language. Several centuries after the development of the printing press, mass-produced books became the major vehicle for scientific communication.⁵⁴⁷⁵ 

Content on this page was last changed on March 19, 2009.