Bartlomiej Siek (Medical University of Gdansk)
In the early modern period, Gdańsk enjoyed a reputation of a very solid centre for medical research and education. Even though Gdańsk had no university as such, medicine was taught at the local Academic Gymnasium, and some of the school’s alumni chose to study medicine at European universities. This high level of education would not have been possible without a good access to the most up-to-date medical literature. Besides libraries, the activity of local publishers was also quite important. The presentation analyzes the role of Gdańsk publishing houses in making the city an important medical centre. The prints from the 16th and 17th centuries of two main Gdańsk publishers (Rhode and Successors, Hunefeld and Successors) are categorized according to the topics in order to find out a statistical relation between medical and other type of the books. The analysis of the form of books (occasional prints, manuals, and scientific texts) allows to define the real impact of local publishers on the development of medicine in early modern Gdańsk.