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MEDICINE
A-E F-I J-O P-Z
HEALTHFUL St. Augustine, 1829
(A
Physician's “Come on Down!”). Anderson, Andrew.
[begins:] St. Augustine, November, 1829. Sir, The nature of the present communication
will present the best apology I can offer for asking your attention to its object....”
[St. Augustine ?]: no publisher/printer, 1829. 4to. [2] pp. with integral blank.
$1250.00
Click the image for an enlargement.
Anderson was a medical doctor who had served as “Physician to the 'Infirmary for diseases of the Lungs,' established in the City of New York.” In this open letter he invites those suffering from Consumption to move to or take a long rest in St. Augustine, for its climate is ideal for improving the health of those afflicted. He provides information about the climate, the water, the cost of room and board in boarding houses, etc.
The format suggests this was printed for mailing to hospitals, medical societies, doctors, and newspapers. Whether it was printed in Florida is a bit problematic. There were presses in Florida, even one in St. Augustine in 1829, but the publication has no printer's slug anywhere. The typography is very good, perhaps indicating printing in Philadelphia, New York, or Boston, but that remains for a type historian to determine.
Apparently very scarce: NO other copies traced through the standard sources including OCLC and the OPACs of the State Library of Florida, the University of Florida Library, and Florida State University Library.
An interesting American medical publication, an interesting early American tourist item, and definitely a good piece of Floridiana.
Not in Servies, Bibliography of Florida; but see I,1430 for a version that appeared in a newspaper. Not in Shoemaker. Old folds suggesting this was once folded to fit in a pocket. Waterstaining. Two small tears repaired with archival tissue. (23078)

Much Varia — An Ad for a
Papermaker!
Abell, Truman. New-England farmer's almanack, with an emphemeris, for the year ... 1828. ... Fitted to the latitude and longitude of the town of Windsor, Vt. but will serve, without sensible variation, for all the adjacent states. Alstead, N. H.: Newton & Tufts; Windsor, Vt.: Simeon Ide, [1827]. 12mo. [24] ff.
$30.00
Title-page with engraved vignette (in an octagon) of a deity holding
a sheaf of wheat with surrounding farm implements, animals, sailing ship, and
sun. Includes poetry, anecdotes, jokes, short essays, practical information
relating to farming, information on courts and local colleges, and a table of
roads. Pages [47–48] contain a papermaker's advertisement, an advertisement
for
medicines by the
author, and a publisher's advertisement by Simeon Ide.
Click the image for an enlargement.
Drake 13641; Shoemaker 29925. Uncut copy; later stitching and later oversewing; dog-earing and a bit tattered. Title-page and p. [48] age-darkened. Occasional mild staining. (10027)
Almanacs often offer both medical/health advice & such ads as this one does . . .
For more ALMANACS, click
here.

“Aristotle's Master Piece”: Virginity, Copulation, & Generation
Aristotle, pseud. The works of Aristotle, the famous philosopher. In four parts ... A new edition. New England: Pr. for the proprietor, 1806. 12mo (18.1 cm, 7.15"). 270 pp.; illus.
$375.00
Early American edition of this famous, “pseudo-Aristotle” work of folk medicine and midwifery. It invariably appeared in cheap editions and it was often sold under the counter because of its explicit, but crude, depictions of the female reproductive organs — and the cuts of the “monstrous” births were (in)famous. The present edition does not include the woodcut depicting female anatomy, but the hairy child and three examples of different conjoined twins are here.
Following the obstetrical “Master Piece” portion (which includes a brief “Family Physician” section as well as “The Experienced Midwife”) are “Aristotle's Book of Problems, with other Astronomers, Astrologers, Philosophers, Physicians, &c.” and “Aristotle's Last Legacy, Unfolding the Mysteries of Nature in the Generation of Man.”
Shaw & Shoemaker 9860; Austin, Early American Medical Imprints, 75; Bibliotheca Osleriana 1836 (for first ed.). Not in Sabin. Period-style quarter tan cloth with light blue paper–covered sides, spine with printed paper label. Title-page mounted. Early pencilled ownership inscription along one inner margin. Pages browned and stained, with occasional chipped edges. One leaf with lower outer corner torn away, affecting a few words; last leaf with small repair at upper inner corner, with loss of several letters. (25215)

“Fundamentall to the Erecting & Building of
a True Philosophy”
Bacon in ENGLISH
— As He
So Often is NOT
Bacon, Francis. Sylva sylvarum or a naturall history in ten centuries. London: Pr. by J.H. for William Lee, 1627. 8vo (27.6 cm, 10.9"). Frontis., add. engr. t.-p., [10], 266, [16], 47, [3] pp. (lacking final blank f.).
$3000.00
Single-click any image where the hand appears on
mouse-over, for an enlargement.
First edition, second issue of this compendium of scientific (and also quaintly “traditional”) knowledge, with the frontispiece dated 1626 and the engraved title-page 1627. The DNB notes that “Bacon’s miscellaneous collection of observations and experiments in natural history was published by Dr. Rawley in 1627, the year after Bacon’s death, but the preface was written by Rawley during his lifetime and the first issue has a letterpress title dated 1626 (the engraved title is 1627 in both issues).”
Added (as issued) to the Sylva sylvarum is Bacon's utopian
New Atlantis, an unfinished allegorical fantasy begun shortly after his political downfall and not long before his death. Together, the two works exemplify Bacon's scientific and literary accomplishments.
The added engraved title-page, bearing the motto “Et vidit Deus lucem quod esset bona,” was done by Thomas Cecill; the frontispiece portrait of Bacon is unsigned. There are some very handsome headpieces and initials.
Provenance: Riggs family: Front pastedown with armorial bookplate of philanthropist Elisha Francis Riggs, who funded the Riggs Library at Georgetown University; volume inherited by T. Lawrason Riggs, founding chaplain of St. Thomas More Chapel, Yale University; donated to St. Thomas More Chapel Library; deaccessioned 2008.
ESTC S106924; STC (2nd ed.), 1169; Gibson, Bacon, 171. On Bacon, see: Dictionary of National Biography. 18th-century calf framed in gilt single fillet, spine with recent gilt-stamped leather title and author labels, board edges with gilt roll; a little rubbed and covers with portions darkened. All edges stained yellow. Front pastedown with bookplate as above. Some pages gently age-toned, with occasional minor spotting. Small hole to added engraved title-page just beneath publication information, not affecting text. Final blank leaf (only) lacking. (24666)

The Andrade Set in
Quarter Red Morocco
Barcía, Andrés González de. Ensayo cronologico, para la historia general de la Florida. Madrid: Imprenta de los Hijos de Doña Catalina Piñuela, 1829. 12mo. 2 vols. I: [2] ff., 508 pp., fold. table. II: [2] ff., 512 pp.
$1675.00
Click the page-images for enlargements.
Written under his nom de plume of Gabriel de Cardenas Z
Cano, the Ensayo cronologico, para la historia general de la Florida
of Andrés González de Barcía has enjoyed constant readership
since its initial publication in the early 18th century, when it was composed
as a companion to González de Barcía's magisterial edition of
Inca Garcilasso de la Vega's La Florida. The Ensayo is a history
of not just Florida but virtually all of America north of Mexico from 1512 to
1722 and details the activities of the Spanish, French, and English, covering
not just wars but offering much on the indigenous populations,
New
World diseases, and so on.
The present edition forms volumes 8 and 9 of the series Historia de la
conquista del Nuevo Mundo.
Provenance: Bookplate of
the great 19th-century Mexican collector J. M. Andrade on the front pastedown
of each volume.
This edition not in Sabin. 19th-century quarter red morocco
with red textured cloth sides. Spine with raised bands and very good gilt
tooling including center devices in spine compartments. Interiors clean. A
very good set. (25271)

Another of Benezet's Causes
Benezet, Anthony. The mighty destroyer displayed, in some account of the dreadful havock made by the mistaken use as well as abuse of distilled spirituous liquors. Philadelphia: Printed by Joseph Crukshank, 1774. 8vo (17 cm; 6.625"). 48 pp.
$650.00
Benezet's causes were many: ending black slavery, improving relations between the Anglo settlers and the native peoples, matters spiritual, and, as here, temperance. The deleterious effects on health, family, and society are well essayed.
Click the images for enlargements.
While the title-page merely says the piece is “by a Lover of Mankind,” Benezet's authorship was well established by Evans.
Bristol B3689; Shipton & Mooney 42555; Hildeburn 2980; ESTC W26174. Not in Blake. Recent quarter calf, old style, with marbled paper sides. Text cockled, with stray stains and age-toning; title-page crumpled. Original edition, not a modern reprint. (27123)
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Written While Living in Rhode Island & Drawing Its Landscape
Berkeley, George. Alciphron: Or, the minute philosopher. In seven dialogues. Containing an apology for the Christian religion, against whose who are called free-thinkers. London: J. Tonson, 1732. 8vo. 2 vols. I: [6] ff., 350 pp. II: [4] ff., 358 pp.
$875.00
Click the interior images for enlargements.
First edition; a second was published the same year. Includes “An
essay towards
a
new theory ofvision. First published in the year
MDCCIX,” with a separate title-page, in vol. II, on pp. [211]–358.
Presented here is Berkeley's defense of revealed religion: It ranks as a
major example of English literature and of American literature too, for he
wrote it while living in America waiting for money for his projected university
in Bermuda. “Alciphron, a set of dialogues located notionally
in England, but drawing much of the landscape description from Rhode Island,”
sold well and aroused controversy after his return to Britain. The New
Theory of Vision is “a work of lasting importance in the psychology
of perception[; it] was transitional between Berkeley's already informed interests
in mathematics and natural philosophy and a growing independence of mind in
metaphysics and epistemology” (both quotations from DNB on-line).
Each volume's main title-page bears an emblematic engraved vignette with a Biblical and a classical motto beneath; the text is embellished with a few nicely engraved initials, headers, and tailpieces; and of course “Vision” offers its several diagrams.
Provenance: “A. Thorpe – York” inscribed on title-pages.
ESTC T86056; NCBEL, II, 1852. Not in European Americana. Contemporary sheep, spines with raised bands and gilt-stamped red leather labels; covers framed and paneled in blind-stamped triple fillets with blind-stamped corner fleurons; all edges red. Leather rubbed with some loss to corners, edges, turn-ins; vol. I with pulls at both spine extremities, small gouge to front cover, front joint
opening with cover almost off. Old institutional bookplates and rubber-stamp to pastedowns, title-pages, and lower edges of closed volumes; ink ownership signature to title-pages as above and a few additional ink and pencil marks; some very scattered spots or staining with pages generally clean. (21366)
Boerhaave, Herman. Aphorismi de cognoscendis et curandis morbis, in usum doctrinae domesticae digesti ... editio sexta. Edinburgi: R. Drummond & Soc. for G. Hamilton & J. Balfour, 1744. 12mo (15.5 cm, 6.1"). [8], 330, [24 (index)] pp.
$650.00
First Scottish printing of an important work by the celebrated Dutch physician and humanist whose teachings drew students from all over Europe to the University of Leiden. Originally printed in 1709, the volume was translated into English in 1715 as Aphorisms Concerning the Knowledge and Cure of Diseases; Garrison-Morton lauds the volume as “one of Boerhaave’s best works.”
ESTC N5425; Garrison-Morton 2199 (for first ed.). Contemporary speckled calf, spine with gilt-stamped title and compartment decorations; leather cracked and chipped on spine and joints, with minor rubbing to sides and edges. Front free endpaper with private collector’s rubber-stamp and inked name, front pastedown with small inked numeral. One front and one back fly-leaf excised. One leaf with short tear from outer margin just touching one letter; one leaf with paper flaw affecting a few letters without loss of legibility. Pages clean save for some age-toning and scattered iinstances of light staining to outer margins.
Water as
CURE-ALL
Bourne, George Melksham. The home doctor: a guide to health. By Dr. Bourne, of San Francisco. San Francisco: San Francisco News Company, 1878. Small 8vo. Frontis. port., xx, 505, [1] pp.; illus.
$475.00

First edition of this practical treatise of alternative medicine. George Melksham Bourne was a practitioner of drugless healing in an era when scientific approaches to medicine were gaining public favor. Here, Bourne expounds his own system of the "water cure" which emphasized profuse sweating and steam-baths as a treatment for disease. The conflict between conventional and unconventional approaches to medicine is brought home in his vivid descriptions of the toxic effects of allopathic medicine and also in the preface, where he notes efforts by the "regulars" to impede the publication of this book. Illustrated with a frontispiece portrait of Bourne and an in-text illustration.
Click the interior image for an enlargement.
Publisher's brown buckram, stamped in gilt on the spine, in blind on covers. Paper edges marbled. Clean, free of chips or tears. A very fine copy. (24465)
Gastronomic Masterpiece ILLUSTRATED — Limited Edition
Brillat-Savarin, Jean Anthelme. Physiologie du goût ou meditations de gastronomie transcendante. Paris: Les Arts & Le Livre, 1926. 2 vols. 8vo (24 cm, 9.4"). I: xlii, [2], 252 pp.; illus. II: [4], 300, [2] pp.; illus.
$300.00
Click the images for enlargements.
Handsome and uncommon edition of the culinary classic, featuring numerous illustrations lithographed from designs by Pierre Noury. This is number 292 of 520 copies printed on Lafuma verge paper, with the original printed paper wrappers bound in.
Provenance: Front pastedown of vol. I with bookplate of Francis de Neufville Schroeder, a descendent of the first mayor of New York.
Not in Bitting. Contemporary half red morocco and marbled paper–covered sides, spines with gilt-stamped author and title; corners and joints showing some shelf wear, spines slightly darkened. Vol. I front pastedown with bookplate as above. Original yellow wrappers in near-perfect condition; overall, a lovely set. (25885)

The Author Was a
Strange (Mental) Case
Browne, Simon. A defence of the religion of nature, and the Christian revelation; against the defective account of the one, and the exceptions against the other, in a book, entitled, Christianity as old as the creation. London: Richard Ford, 1732. 8vo (20.6 cm, 8.1"). vi, [2], 267, 272–512 pp.
$575.00
Click the interior images for enlargements.
First edition, with errata slip present. Browne was a dissenting minister who, according to Allibone, spent the last ten years of his life under the delusion that God had “annihilated in him the thinking substance, and utterly divested him of consciousness: that though he retained the human shape, and the faculty of speaking, in a manner that appeared to others rational, he had all the while no more notion of what he said than a parrot” — and yet while in that state, he compiled Greek and Latin dictionaries, answered Woolston's Discourse on the Miracles of Our Saviour, and wrote this rebuttal of Tindal's Christianity as Old as the Creation.
ESTC T86771; Allibone 263. Period-style calf framed and panelled in blind rolls with blind-tooled corner fleurons, spine with gilt-stamped leather title and author labels, gilt-dotted raised bands, and gilt-stamped decorations in compartments (signed in blind on lower rear turn-in by Grace Bindings). Pagination jumps from 267 to 272, text complete. Title-page with early inked annotation on the authorship of Christianity as Old as the Creation, and with institutional rubber-stamp in lower margin; closed lower edges rubber-stamped. First and last few leaves lightly spotted. (23782)

A Nun's Copy
Then Another Nun's
Capuchin Nuns. Regla de la gloriosa santa Clara,con las constituciones de las monjas Capuchinas del santissimo crucifixo de Roma, reconocidas, y reformadas por el Padre General de los Capuchinos y con las adiciones a los estatutos de dicha regla ... Mexico: Reimpressa en la Imprenta del Lic. Don Joseph de Jauregui, n.d. [ca. 1760–75]. 16mo (15 cm; 6'). [4] ff., 234 pp.
$750.00
Click the interior images for enlargements.
A later Mexican printing of the Rule and Constitution of the Poor Clares — a.k.a, Capuchin Nuns — in Mexico. The first edition seems to have appeared in 1719. The Poor Clares, officially “The Order of Saint Clare,” is a contemplative branch of the Franciscan order that St. Clare of Assisi founded in 1212. The order's mission is to pray for the needs of the church, the world, and all people who are in need.
As part of the last, they pray for intervention in medical and mental matters for those suffering from maladies.
Provenance: On front free endpaper in 18th-century hands: “del uso de Sor Maria Coleta,” lined through; below which, “del uso de Sor M[ari]a Juan Nep[umacen]a.
The printer has supplied two charming initials, an “I” and a “C.”
Medina, Mexico, 9208. Publisher's limp vellum with remnants of ties. Occasional light foxing. Ownership signatures as noted. (23966)

Prudent
New England-Style DOMESTICITY
Cornelius, Mrs. Mary Hooker. The young
housekeeper's friend; or, a guide to domestic economy and comfort. Boston: Charles Tappan;
New York: Saxton & Huntington, 1846. 12mo (18.2 cm, 7.2"). 190 pp.
$550.00
Click the images for enlargements.
Uncommon first edition of this popular and oft-reprinted manual of cookery and
household management, aimed squarely at the middle class. The introduction encourages
kindness towards domestic servants; meanwhile, one of the earliest “counsels” for those young
women concerned about the responsibilities of their new lives is that “Good housekeeping [is]
compatible with intellectual culture” (p. 7). The very American — or more specifically, very
New England — recipes include fish chowder, Norwich loaf cake, Litchfield crackers, New
Haven sugar gingerbread, Salem plum pudding, etc.The endpapers bear several additional recipes pencilled in an early hand, including a
“Cure for Felon.”
American Imprints 46-1830; Bitting 100; Brown, Culinary
Americana, 1491 (1860 ed.); Cagle & Stafford 187; Lowenstein 399.
Publisher's quarter brown cloth and printed light green paper–covered sides; edges rubbed, sides
lightly stained. Endpapers as above; title-page with early pencilled annotation in upper portion;
foxing and staining, but no tears or tattering. In fact a good copy, the more interesting as
showing it was used. (26685)

A Crukshank “Plague Year”
Defoe, Daniel. The dreadful visitation, in a short account of the progress and effects of the plague, the last time it spread in the city of London, in the year 1665, extracted from the memoirs of a person who resided there during the whole time of that infection. Philadelphia: Printed by Joseph Crukshank, 1774. 8vo (17 cm; 6.6"). 16 pp.
$350.00
Fourth American edition of this abridgment of Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year.
Click the images for enlargements.
Evans 13241; Hildeburn 3001; Austin 635; Blake p. 111; ESTC W6028. Recent quarter leather with marbled paper sides. Some staining in foremargins and corners, sometimes into text; foxing, and light age-toning. Old library pressure-stamp on title-page (properly deaccessioned). A rather okay copy. (27083)
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Descartes Illustrated
Descartes, René. Renati Des Cartes opera philosophica. Francofurti ad Moenum: Sumptibus Friderici Knochii, 1692. 4to. 5 parts in 1 vol. Frontis., [47] ff.; [4] ff., 384 pp.; [16] ff., 168 pp.; [8] ff., 220 pp.; [12] ff., 74 pp., [3] ff.; [18] ff., 188 pp., 7 plts.
$2250.00
Click the interior images for enlargements.
The Opera philosophica brings together disparate writings by Descartes and prints each with its own title-page and pagination. The parts are: 1. Meditationes de prima philosophica; seven illustrative plates for this are bound at the end of the volume — one lacking). 2. Principia Philosophiae. 3. Specimina philosophiae seu Dissertatio de methodo Recte regentae rationes, & veritatis in scientiis investigandae Dioptrice et Meteora; illustrative plate inserted at end of volume. 4. Passiones Animae. 5. Tractatus de Homine et de Formatione Foetus Quorum prior Notis perpetuis Ludovici de La Forge, M.D. illustratur.
One of two issues of this edition, this being the issue illustrated with seven folding plates, in addition to the many, many in-text woodcut illustrations, some nearly full-page.
VD17 1:620459Z. Contemporary stiff vellum. Ex-library with call number on spine and bookplate, but no other markings. A very good copy. (14709)

Illustrated Explorations of the
Countryside
Dibdin, Charles. Observations on a tour through almost the whole of England, and a considerable part of Scotland, in a series of letters, addressed to a large number of intelligent and respectable friends. London: G. Goulding & John Walker (pr. by T. Woodfall), [1801–02]. 4to (28.9 cm, 11.4"). 2 vols. I: 404 pp.; 27 plts. II: [2], 406, [2] pp.; 33 plts., 1 fold. map, 1 fold. chart.
$750.00
Click the images for enlargements.
First edition, published in parts, of Dibdin's epistolary account of his travels as a performer in the provinces. Charles Dibdin the elder was a famed but controversial singer, songwriter, and actor who spent a significant amount of time touring the countryside in an attempt to improve both his reputation and his income; in these Observations he includes remarks on the history, natural history, geography, famous natives, trade and manufacture, and customs of the towns and villages he passed through, as well as on various theatrical, literary, and cultural topics near and dear to his heart. He also denounces circulating libraries, watering places, and female boarding schools (in all three cases due to their detrimental effects on morals), as well as quack medicines and incompetent amateur performers.
The two volumes are
illustrated with 60 copper-engraved and aquatint plates, one folding map, and one folding chart. The copper engravings are done in two different styles; one set consists of large renditions of scenery, the other of smaller depictions of people and everyday life — the former done from Dibdin's own paintings, and the latter from drawings by his daughter Anne.
Anderson, Book of British Topography, 373; Lowndes 638; NSTC D1044. Not in Abbey, Life in England; not in Ray, The Illustrator & the Book in England. On Dibdin, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online. Recent quarter caramel morocco and ochre cloth. Light to moderate foxing; mild offsetting around plates; four pages with patch of offsetting from now-absent laid-in item. Plates depicting people all with small area of waterstaining to upper inner portions, just touching corner of platemark without affecting images; scenic plates unaffected. All edges marbled.
A solid, handsome, satisfying set. (26939)

Materia Medica — Ancient Knowledge
Dioscorides Pedanius, of Anazarbos. Dioscoridis libri octo Graece et Latine. Castigationes in eosdem libros. Parisiis: Apud Petrum Haultinum (colophon: Excudebat Benedictus Prevost), 1549. 8vo (16.7 cm, 6.5"). [20], 392 ff.
$1000.00
Click the interior images for enlargements.
Important classical work on herbalism and pharmacology, listing the medicinal effects of hundreds of different plants known to the ancient Greeks and Romans. The present example is one of two variants of the 1549 edition, with this Haultinum imprint being notably
more uncommon than the Birkmann imprint.
The work was edited by Jacques Goupyl, and is laid out with the Latin translation by Jean Ruel in side-by-side columns with the Greek text.
Provenance: Early title-page inscription, “F.M. ex dono Eduardi Davenant.”
Adams D656; Durling 1135; Index aureliensis 154.341; Pritzel 2295. 18th-century speckled calf (front cover) and sheep (back cover) rebacked with lighter-colored sheep preserving original gilt-stamped leather title-label; boards scuffed and worn. Title-page with inked inscription as above (and in same hand, “Illuminat mentem Lectio.” First two leaves creased; first and last few leaves with light to moderate waterstaining. A very few marginalia in a tiny, neat, early inked hand. (20639)
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