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Handbook for Physicians - 1765.

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:125.00 USD Estimated At:250.00 - 325.00 USD
Handbook for Physicians - 1765.
The General Dispensatory..., "to which are added, the Doses, Virtues, and Uses of the Simples as well as Compounds, and in what Cases they are attended with Danger. With a Design to render the Practice of Physic more Safe, Easy, and Successful." By R. Brookes, M.D. London: 1765. Second Ed. 4 x 6 3/4, 388 pp. + lengthy indices. Full original calf, gilt double-rule border. Pp. 1-133 devoted to alphabetical cyclopaedia of materia medica - the building blocks of homeopathic medicine as practiced today. Together with many hundreds of formulas of preparations, elixirs, "medicated wines," honeys, "gellies," extracts, distilled waters, preserves and conserves, powders, electuaries, oils, salts, metallic preparations, rosinous and sulphureous preparations, pills, ointments and liniments. Including "Tincture of Wood-Soot: Soot has been esteemed to be of great Efficacy in the Falling-Sickness; and the meaner sort of Women in Germany use it frequently in hysteric Fits with Success...In the Epilepsy it must be taken three or four days before the New and Full Moon...." Among others: Sugared Iron ("Clean filings of Iron...as much as you please...Pour on them...Sugar thick enough for candying..."), Lunar Caustic, Flower of Brimstone, Vinegar of Squills, Oil of Bricks (to cure deafness), Mercurial Pills (quicksilver, turpentine, and rhubarb!), Ointment of Marshmallows, and many, many more. Exhaustive index, providing a panoramic glimpse of a doctor's cabinet in the eighteenth-century. Signature on half-title, "Daniel Morgan...Liber...1785." Signature on rear endleaf, "Dr. Charles Adams, 1786," with his elaborate calligraphic monogram penned on facing board. Contemporary manuscript formula on front endleaf, "...two ounces of salt Peter, half an ounce of Saffron...For the paroxysm of the Gout, take two tea spoonfulls...when you apprehend it...." Notation on front endpaper, "Purchased at Adams-Perkins auction 1925, Bessie Fenton Ellis." Old slip inserted, judged c. 1925, with user's pencilled notes of subjects of interest: "...snails, vipers, earth worms, hog-lice...." Boards separated, repaired with mid-twentieth-century frosted tape; spine cracked from use, text block in two main sections, with additional leaves and signatures shaken; considerable wear, internally with pleasing graduated toning to cream, else good plus, with some period provenance. An utterly fascinating view of the state of clinical practice around the time of the American Revolution.