Isaiah Thomas (1749–1831), of Worcester, MA owned: Hortus sanitatus major by Jacob Meidenbach. The Hortus Sanitatis (also written Ortus; Latin for The Garden of Health), a Latin natural history encyclopaedia, was published by Jacob Meydenbach in Mainz, Germany in 1491. It describes species in the natural world along with their medicinal uses & modes of preparation. It followed the Latin Herbarius moguntinus (1484) & the German Gart der Gesundheit (1485), that Peter Schöffer had published in Mainz. An English version of extracts from the Hortus, the Noble lyfe & natures of man, of bestes, serpentys, fowles & fisshes, was produced in 1491 by Laurence Andrew (fl. 1510–1537). Ortus sanitatis 4th edition; 3rd Strasbourg edition. Published 1499 by J. Prüss in Strasbourg.
Thomas was founder of the American Antiquarian Society, printer, publisher, and author of The History of Printing in America (1810). This library formed the core of the original collections of the American Antiquarian Society. This catalog contains the library of Isaiah Thomas, as documented in an octavo volume titled "Catalogue of The private Library of Isaiah Thomas, Senior, Of Worcester, Massachusetts. Taken in March, in the Year 1812."
On a preceding leaf, Thomas writes "The following Catalogue of Books is presented to the American Antiquarian Society, to be the exclusive property of said Society to all intents and purposes so long as it shall continue a body corporate, pursuant to the provisions of the Act of incorporation of said Society. By Isaiah Thomas, Worcester, July 12, 1812."
