MEDICINE.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Eyn bewert Recept wie man das Holtz Gnagacam fur die Frantzosen brauchen soll. An extremely rare copy of one of the earliest pamphlets promoting the use of the guaiacum wood as a cure for syphilis and providing specific instructions for the plant's use. Printed circa December 1518, the work was published the same month and year as an equally rare Augsburg pamphlet with a similar title, Ain Recept ecept von ainem holtz zu brauchen fur die Kranckhait der Frantzosen. Both pamphlets are only recorded at the same single location in the United States. The only earlier work specifically about guaiacum noted in European Americana is Niccolò Campani's Lamento... sopra il mal fancioso, a description of the "French Disease" in verse printed in Siena, c.1515.Although works about syphilis were published even prior to 1500, this pamphlet's directions for curing the disease with the American plant guaiacum are among the first to be published, predating Ulrich von Hutten's popular instructions for the cure which first appeared in 1519. John Alden notes in the preface to the first volume of European Americana that the "appearance in Europe of syphilis at the end of the 15th century seems, all too inexorably [from America], due to its transmission from Hispaniola, beginning with Columbus and his men... The consequences for the bibliographer will be readily evident, for as the armies of European powers traipsed across the Continent they spread this new scourge, reflected in the writings of the

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