Details
HARRIS, Walter (1647-1732). Pharmacologia anti-empirica: or a rational discourse of remedies both chymical and galenical. London: Richard Chiswell, 1683.
8o (181 x 111 mm). Errata on a8v, 2-page publisher's ads at end. Contemporary black morocco, covers gilt panelled, spine gilt, gilt edges (a bit rubbed). Provenance: Henry Somerset (1629-1700), first Duke of Beaufort, the dedicatee of the present work (ms. shelfmarks of the library at Badminton House on verso of front free endpaper).
FIRST EDITION, THE DEDICATION COPY, of Harris's first book, a semi-humourous treatise on medicinal drugs and their history. Harris discusses the controversy between the Galenists, proponents of traditional medical practices, and the Paracelsians, who advocated the use of chemical medicine, a form of treatment that by the late 17th century had become fairly widely accepted. Separate chapters are devoted to each of the six traditional "great remedies" antimony, mercury, vitriol, iron ("chalybeats"), quinine ("cortex" or "American bark" or "Jesuit's powder"), and opium. "A very empty essay on the causes of gout is intercalated, with no discoverable reason but that the Duke of Beaufort, to whom the whole work is dedicated, was threatened with attacks of that disorder" (DNB). Harris was physician to Charles II and later to William and Mary, whom he attended during her final illness. NLM/Krivatsy 5274; Wellcome III, p.212; Wing H-885; Norman 993.
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FIRST EDITION, THE DEDICATION COPY, of Harris's first book, a semi-humourous treatise on medicinal drugs and their history. Harris discusses the controversy between the Galenists, proponents of traditional medical practices, and the Paracelsians, who advocated the use of chemical medicine, a form of treatment that by the late 17th century had become fairly widely accepted. Separate chapters are devoted to each of the six traditional "great remedies" antimony, mercury, vitriol, iron ("chalybeats"), quinine ("cortex" or "American bark" or "Jesuit's powder"), and opium. "A very empty essay on the causes of gout is intercalated, with no discoverable reason but that the Duke of Beaufort, to whom the whole work is dedicated, was threatened with attacks of that disorder" (DNB). Harris was physician to Charles II and later to William and Mary, whom he attended during her final illness. NLM/Krivatsy 5274; Wellcome III, p.212; Wing H-885; Norman 993.