Tobias Cohen (1652-1729) was a graduate of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Padua, and student of science, who traveled in Germany, Poland, Italy, Adrianople, Constantinople, and Jerusalem, He wrote his Ma'aseh Tuviyyah (The Work of Tobias), Venice, 1707, in Adrianople, where he was physician to five successive sultans. This is a mini-encyclopedia on astronomy, medicine, hygiene, botany, cosmography and theology. There are sections on Shabbetai Zvi, an essay on the four elements, and a medical dictionary.
One of the engravings from that book, parallels the interior organs of the human body, with a laboratory in the form of a house of the elements, in which we see on the first floor a little fountain, and on the second floor, an alchemical still and an open cauldron or crucible.
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