DUBOIS, Jacques.
La pharmacopee.
Lyon, De l\'imprimerie de Loys Cloquemin, et Estienne Michel, 1574£1,950.00
8vo. pp. (xvi) 518. Roman letter. T-p with woodcut printer’s device. Woodcut initials, typographical tailpieces. C17th calf, spine gilt in panels, raised bands, red Morocco label, gilt, rubbed, spine restored, marbled papers, edges stained red, silk tie. Later inscriptions and erasures in various hands to front fly, t-p and final verso, ‘J. Roux,’ ‘Blondel’ and ‘Antoine Barras,’ offsetting, ownership inscription to rear endpaper, ‘Hic liber pertinent ad me alexander and[rews?] 1745.’ Occasional ms. marginal marks. Ink burn hole along top edge near gutter, slight loss to first few quires, not affecting text, light waterstain to lower margin at end, the odd ink stain, a good copy.
First edition in French translation of this popular pharmacopoeia by the extremely prolific physician Jacques Dubois, known as Jacobus Sylvius, first published 1548. It opens with several prefaces, one of which advocates communication between doctors and apothecaries. The work is simply divided into three methods: choosing ‘simples’ from flowers, seeds, roots, trees, etc., cooking them in various ways, frying, roasting, etc., and then combining them to make drugs in the form of oils, powders, pills and so on. The translator, André Caille, who translated other pharmacopoeias as well as a work on gardens, provides a marginal commentary, mostly pointing to references in Galen and Dioscorides, but occasionally yielding criticism, such as the claim that ‘the author has neither seen nor understood the fashion of harvesting grapes, which is completely contrary to what he describes’ (p. 72). Dubois was one of Vesalius’s teachers and led attacks on him after the publication of the Human Anatomy, for daring to question Galen’s authority.
NLM 1247. Wellcome 6161. Not in Osler or Heirs of Hippocrates.
