Ooh, this is an interesting one.

Today, we think of "medicine" as an umbrella field with a unified body of basic knowledge/training followed by specialization: oncology, surgery, OBGYN, dermatology, and so forth. This, as we will see, is actually a painful, bitterly competitive development that didn't solidify until the modern era. Coming out of the Middle Ages, a different distinction was more important: medicine as an academic subject, studied by doctoral students (physicians; "doctor" at this time is not specific to medicine) at universities; versus a dazzling panoply of medical trades. Mary Lindemann talks about a "medical marketplace" in early modern Europe, where barber-surgeons, religious healers, apothecaries, bath/hot springs attendants (where those still existed), midwives, snakebite specialists, and so forth jockeyed for social and professional position. Sometimes they worked off an academic education--15-16th century Nuremberg barber-surgeon Hans Folz read the medical texts of classical authors, and 18th century itinerant oculist John Taylor had a full-blown medical education. But then there were those like William Read--that's Sir William Read to you--a tailor who made an international reputation for himself as an eye specialist, became a medical adviser to the Queen of England, and was knighted for it in 1705.

But just like apothecaries yelled at surgeons for selling remedies under the table and surgeons yelled at apothecaries for diagnosing illnesses so they could sell the remedies, the distinction between "practical" and "academic" medicine was never stable. More and more, physicians sought to assert their authority over the medical trades. Broader developments in scientific knowledge (like, you know, science) from the 17th century only ramped up the competition. Plus, the proliferation of medical handbooks in vernacular languages (id est, not Latin), especially from the 16th century on, allowed interplay of knowledge between academic medicine and practical techniques between the two already-overlapping groups. Physicians and artisans were generally part of different intellectual and social worlds. But was this changing?

This is the historical context for Johannes von Muralt, the author and compiler of OP's book. Muralt (1645-1733) studied medicine at universities all over western Europe and finally came home to Zürich, where he took up the position of official city doctor. He was eventually also a university professor in his own right. On one hand, he moved in a rarified intellectual world. His publications range from botany to zoology to philosophy (although unfortunately there's no general study of his writings yet). On the other, he was firmly opposed to the division between academia and praxis. Muralt was a practicing doctor who treated patients, after all. And he didn't just teach at university in Latin; he lectured in German, to any interested public.

Schriften von der Wund-Artzney, which you have here, comes firmly out of the "medical trade" tradition rather than academic medicine. From the table of contents, it appears that Muralt presents first his own extensive writings, then briefer comments from earlier physicians (and, I think, one primarily-a-lawyer? I recognize his name from witchcraft trial stuff, assuming it's the same person). "Wound-doctoring" is a pretty good description of the contents. There's a section on tumors, on skin lesions, on cataracts, on obstetrics. He even included a section on dealing with specifically the types of wounds one would be likely to receive in combat--military medicine. This was the traditional purview of the barber-surgeon.

I want to call attention to the title page, which boldly proclaims Muralto "Chir. & M.D." This is, of course, a reference to him being both a surgeon and a doctor of medicine. That is, writing a handbook of medical practice in 1711, Muralto (and his publisher) believed the practical experience of being a surgeon was as big a selling point as his academic credential. And they were right. The turn of the 18th century saw a little fountain of obstetrics/midwifery guides written by women, for other (literate) midwives. Just like midwives were not happy about the encroachment on their practice (or the tendency of physicians to resort to drastic and risky surgery for problems the midwives knew how to handle through manual manipulation), a lot of academic physicians were less than thrilled with the competition in the book market. As Siegemund archly pointed out to the medical student who denounced her book, she was the one whose text had secured the approval of the university (Frankfurt) board. After all, how many deliveries had he performed? "Close to ninety"? She estimated that by that point, she'd performed over 5000.

Muralto had a crazy education, published in Latin, and delved into more elite fields like developing zoology and philosophy. But it's his commitment to the practice of medicine, and to the spread of medical knowledge to a wider audience, that produced Schriften von der Wund-Artzney.