[DCRM-L] German abbreviations from 1605/1618

Ted P Gemberling tgemberl at uab.edu
Wed Sep 16 16:46:04 MDT 2015


I hope someone can give me some enlightenment on two abbreviations I see on this title page. If you look at the first page of this, an engraved title page for a collection of surgical writings by Paracelsus from 1618:
http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=gri.ark:/13960/t7tm8155g#view=1up;seq=5

You'll notice that about half way into the title, following "auch" and before "mehrer Richtigkeit vnd Ordnung willen," there is what looks like a v followed by an m, topped by what appears to be the "missing letters" abbreviation on p. 188 of DCRM(b). Does anyone know what is being abbreviated here? On this page, which appears to be generally well transcribed, it is left as "vm" with the sign over the m:

https://books.google.com/books?id=fTgPAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA85&lpg=PA85&dq=mehrerrichtigkeit&source=bl&ots=4Q7xDz1vBC&sig=U5OdO3WIUXXEyKmMcsNoLuB-Oxg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CEYQ6AEwCWoVChMIvMip1bb8xwIVylYeCh3NQwjx#v=onepage&q=mehrerrichtigkeit&f=false

That's on p. 13 of the electronic book. I suppose that since this printer uses v in initial position for u, this could simply be "um." But then why the abbreviation mark? And would "um" make sense here?

I also toyed with the idea of "vom," with the abbreviation showing loss of the o, but vom would not make sense because the noun agreeing with it would have to be masculine, and Richtigkeit is feminine.

Now, the copy that I am cataloging is actually a 1605 edition, which, instead of "hohem Nutz vnd Verstandt," two lines down from there, has "hohem Nutz vn Verstandt," with the n in vn topped with the abbreviation sign. Since the 1618 edition spells vnd out, I suppose there is no problem in interpreting the 1605 form as an abbreviation for that. Was that a typical abbreviation practice?

I particularly hope someone will have an idea about how to transcribe the first abbreviation.

I notice this German-language record, which has fairly extensive transcription, skips over those words: 912483569. Apparently the cataloger didn't consider them essential to the sense of the title.

Thanks,
Ted P. Gemberling
Historical Collections Cataloger
UAB Lister Hill Library, rm. 234B
1720 Second Ave. South
Birmingham, Ala. 35294-0013
Phone: (205)934-2461
Fax: (205)934-3545

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