MOELLENBROCK, Valentin Andras.

by Valentin Andras Moellenbrock

£3,250 · Offered by Sokol Books

First English edition, translated by Thomas Shirley (d. 1678), physician in ordinary to Charles II, of this work on the natural and medicinal properties of scurvygrass (cochlearia), first published in Latin by the Leipzig physician Moellenbrock in 1674. Sherley also authored a dedicatory letter to his patron and to readers of the book, of what classis soever you are. Indeed, this opens somewhat presumptuously: I must tell you, instead of your censure I expect your thanks for the present I now make you ; Sherley also promises to please those who are Chymically addicted. A wide range of plants are briefly and imaginatively surveyed in the proem, for example, details of a root in Judea that cannot be plucked up until it has been sprinkled with a Woman s Urine, or Menstruous blood. The first chapter then considers the etymological and aetiological origins of various plant names, noting superfluously that scurvygrass is called as such because it cures scurvy; its Latin name cochlearia is linked to the rounded shallow shapes of the leaves ( cochlea being a Latin word derived from the Greek for snails, referring both their spiral shells and to the little spoons that were used by Romans to eat them), which are charmingly illustrated in the first plate, showing Dutch scurvygrass or true scurvygrass. Shirley s faithful translation leads to some confusion regarding English geography. The English scurvygrass or Britania bistort is shown in the plates to have different leaves to Dutch scu

• Binding: Hardcover

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