De occultis pharmacorum potestibus. Basle, Pietro Perna, 1574

£4,500 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

First edition of Thomas Erastus’ treatise on the occult qualities in pharmacology, owned and annotated by a family of eminent Cambridge physicians from the 16th and 17th centuries. A Swiss physician and Calvinist theologian, Thomas Erastus (1524-1583) wrote extensively on medicine, astrology and alchemy, and was a fervent supporter of the medieval tradition, particularly of Galen and of Aristotelian natural philosophy – which put him in direct opposition to the predominant system of Paracelsus. His controversial ideas extended into religious topics: in his most famous work, the Theses (published posthumously in 1589), he argued that the sins committed by Christians should be punished by the State and not by the Church withholding sacraments as a punishment (a way of thinking subsequently known as Erastianism). The present work was published in 1574, the same year that he was excommunicated by the Heidelberg consistory for his heretical views; though lifted a year later, the edict was a symptom of the tension agitating both religious and medical spheres of thought in Renaissance Europe. The present work is Erastus’ reply to a question posed by physician and Heidelberg professor Henricus Smetius, ‘whether there were drugs which by occult virtue affect particular parts of the body, and if so, how to know them’ (Thorndike V, 661). In his response, Erastus, though accepting of the existence of ‘occult virtues’ (i.e. intangible curative qualities about medical treatments and substa

• Year: 1574

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