CARTWRIGHT, Thomas.; with [HESTER, John, trans.; FIORAVANTI, Leonardo.]; with LEVENS, Peter.; and [LANGHAM, William.]

£29,500 · Offered by Sokol Books

A very rare survival – a sammelband of four C16 English medical works, three in the first edition. Rebound in the early C18, most probably in Scotland, the book was still being used as a reference work by a series of (likely related) C18 physicians: Thomas, John, and James Milne. Although we have not traced their names in any of the four Scottish universities’ early student registers – which include variations such as Mille, Mill, Mylne, or Millne – James signed himself at Brora, on the north coast, the nearest university being Aberdeen. Several annotations include Scottish spelling, e.g., ‘marcat’ for market. In 1712-14, Thomas appears to have had this sammelband bound or rebound, with some works in already incomplete copies, and added blanks for annotations. It is also possible that he deliberately discarded (or disposed of) those parts of works which were not relevant to study or practice. He created a table of contents for Cartwright’s work, and filled several blanks with recipes drawn from books of secrets: to drain a swollen leg, treat the gut, etc. Most interesting is the section on ‘how to become invisible’, using heliotropium and a laurel leaf enclosed in a wolf’s tooth, possibly ultimately drawn from Copeland’s ‘Booke of Secrets of Albertus Magnus’ (1561), which also includes a recipe requiring the ‘matrix of a young frog’. Others include remedies for women who cannot conceive, against St Anthony’s fire (shingles), dropsy, how to help a woman deliver a still-born ba

• Binding: Hardcover

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