PRIMROSE, James.

by James Primrose

£7,500 · Offered by Sokol Books

A good copy of the first edition in English of this important work, criticising unqualified doctors and lay physicians. This translation by Robert Witty includes two commendatory poems by Andrew Marvell who, like Witty, was patronised by the Fairfax family. James Primrose (d.1659) trained at Bourdeaux and Oxford, and was admitted to the Royal College of Physicians having among his examiners William Harvey. First published in Latin in 1638, Popular errours is entirely devoted to debunking the effectiveness of numerous popular remedies used at the time, especially in the countryside, where trained doctors were generally unavailable. Primrose suggested that only trained physicians and surgeons really knew the discipline, and that lay people ( mongrell-Physicians ) ought not so rashly and adventurously intermeddle with them . Primrose sought to establish a professional ethos , inspired by practices advocated by the RCP (Bennett, p.19). Popular errours begins with a discussion of trained doctors, followed by several chapters on healers who shouldn t practise. These include doctors assistants, poor scholars who learn from their master and end up practising unlicensed to earn money, physician-clerics (who treat their parishioners for money), women ( especially busied about surgery, and that part chiefly which concerns the cure of tumours and ulcers ), mountebanks or charlatans (who sold special antidotes against poisons, balsams and ointments), and almanac-makers. Primrose advocated

• Binding: Hardcover

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.