BACHOT, Gaspard

A good copy of the first edition of this rare and most interesting work on popular medical misconceptions, and the status of medicine and the medical profession, the only known work of the author. Gaspard Bachot (b.1570?), ‘medecin du Roy’. It is a continuation of a work of the same title by the Montpellier physician and Bachot’s teacher, Laurent Joubert (1529-82). Like Joubert – the creator of this ‘popular misconceptions’ genre- Bachot sought to steer both physicians and patients away from folk medicine, epitomised by the beliefs of selftaught village midwives, which had gradually become mixed with scholarly medicine in the medieval manuscript tradition, exhorting people rather to revert to the Greek writings of the great medical authorities (Charuty, p.48). The lengthy preface is a bold, medico-philosophical summary of theories on the bodily physiology and spiritual nature of humans, animals, plants, insects and even monsters (i.e., beings that are beyond, not against, nature), complexio (outer appearance) and the workings of medical remedies. Bachot criticises the ‘Chymiques’ et ‘Paracelsistes’ who make fun of doctrines based on Greek medicine, whilst arguing that they themselves believe mercury, sulphur and salt are the only elements that form bodies. Book I is important for a digression on ‘physician’s contempt’ (mespris), each vainly believing that everyone else is mistaken who doesn’t agree with him (p.114). At the end, Bachot adds a decalogue of rules of conduct for medical practitioners: e.g., learn everything that concerns your profession; never despise anyone from whom you can learn; learn at university, whilst you have the time, to be a good anatomist, surgeon, herbalist, etc.; learn about drugs; do not eschew hospitals as they are most important to see sundry types of illnesses. There follows a collection of popular errors with counterarguments based on Bachot’s medical experience. These are mostly structured in an “is it true that?” form; e.g., Is it true that the heat of a bed causes scabs?; is good for one s health to be in the cold? Does a woman who spends the months of March and September in bed eschew all kinds of illnesses during the year (this being attributed to a midwife). To these statements is intermixed advice for a good ‘regimen sanitatis’; for instance, how much time should pass between meals; is boiled or roasted meat more nourishing; is digestion helped more by wake or sleep, work or rest, or by holding one’s arm across one s stomach, and so on. In fact a large part of the work is consecrated to food and the effects of diet on our health. A monumental encyclopaedia of early modern popular medicine, with insight into the medical profession of the day.

The binding is most probably a prize binding given to a student by the patron of a school, with his arms added below. Unfortunately we have not been able to identify the recipient.