BACHOT, Gaspard

by Gaspard Bachot

£1,850 · Offered by Sokol Books

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 decalo

• Binding: Hardcover

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