BACHOT, Gaspard.

by Gaspard Bachot

£2,750 · Offered by Sokol Books

.A good copy of the first edition of this most interesting work on popular medical misconceptions, and the status of medicine and the medical profession. Gaspard Bachot (b.1570?), medecin du Roy , wrote it as the third part of a work of the same title by the Montpellier physician, and Bachot s teacher, Laurent Joubert (1529-82), first printed in 1578. Like Joubert the creator of the popular misconceptions genre - Bachot sought to steer both physicians and patients away from folk medicine, epitomized by the beliefs of self-taught village midwives, which had gradually mixed with scholarly medicine in the medieval manuscript tradition, and revert to the original Greek writings of the great medical authorities (Charuty, p.48). The very long 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, such as stones. Bachot criticises the Chymiques et Paracelsistes who make fun of doctrines based on Greek medicine (and the ancient Spagyrics), whilst they themselves believe mercury, sulphur and salt are the only elements forming 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 decalogue of rules of conduct for medical pr

• Binding: Hardcover

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