ALPINI (Prospero). De medicina ægyptiorum libri quatuor... Venice, Fr. Franciscis, 1591. In-4, vellum (contemporary binding). 12 ff. o.c., 150 ff. o.c., 25 ff. o.c. index. First edition. "The first important work on the history of Egyptian medicine, and one of the earliest European studies on non-Western medicine", says Norman 39. Mortimer quotes two states of the title, this is the second state with scarificationes et chyrurgicis corrected to line 7. Alpini had travelled in Egypt for three years in the company of the Venetian consul Emo. During his stay he was introduced to the essentially Turkish medicine then practised in Egypt. Hardback: ALPINI (P.). De Plantis Ægyti Liber. Accessit etiam liber de balsamo. Venice, Fr. de Franciscis, 1592. 2 parts. 4 ff, 61 ff (incorrectly numbered 57), 3 ff. o.c. (title and dedication), ff. 61-80, 8 ff. o.c. index. Title vignette, numerous woodcuts and 49 woodcuts in text showing plants, 38 of them full-page. First edition of the first work on Egyptian flora. Among the species described are the coffee tree, of which the illustration is the first known representation, the baobab, papyrus, etc. The second part of the work is a treatise on the balsam tree, which first appeared on its own in 1591. Pritzel 111 - Nissen. Botan. Buchillustration n° 20 - Garrison-Morton 6468 - Ibrahim-Hilmy. Egypt and the Soudan I, 32 (this copy). From the library of the Orientalist scholar Charles Schefer (1820-1898), with armorial bookplate, then from the collection of Prince Ibrahim Hilmy (1860-1927), scholar and military, who had assembled a considerable collection devoted to Egypt and the Sudan, with armorial bookplate and manuscript library mark. Fine copy of each of the works, title of the first work doubled after a provenance was scratched, pale spotting on a few leaves in the upper margin, worm work in the margin of a few leaves, otherwise fresh, one flap of the binding nicked by a rodent for a few cm.