Medicine. 1654 General Practise of Physick (English translation of Artzney Buch), Christoph Wirsung. London

A 1654 English translation of the medical recipe (or treatment) work of Christoph Wirsung, originally titled Artzney Buch. This edition enlarged, with input from English physicians of the period (their additions noted with printed manicules).

From the German Wiki - With his printed collection of recipes, Wirsung wanted to enable urban and rural populations to correctly recognize and assess diseases and to instruct them to use the appropriate remedies. His book was intended to be of particular use to the medical layman. As he emphatically writes, he not only wanted to provide information about expensive medicines, but also to offer remedies for the smaller purse. Wirsung divided his "Artzney Book" according to the classic "a capite ad calcem" order ("from head to foot", "from crown to sole") into four parts, in which the head, chest, abdomen and the organs lying in them as well as the limbs and their diseases are treated. Four more parts are added, in which skin diseases, fever as an independent disease, the plague and poisoning are described; attached is an eighth part, in which gingerbread, spiced wines, oils, life and gold waters are described with detailed production instructions.

While this work is of great interest for the many period medical recipes and treatments it presents (such as, for the plague), there may be added interest in the gastronomic recipes (such as wine production, confections, preserves, etc.) found near the rear.

Bibliographic Details -

Universal Short Title Catalogue (USTC) number 3069502, 16 copies recorded in the world's libraries. English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) R216228

Worldcat OCLC catalogue number 62552659

Physical Attributes -

Measures approx. 28.5 x 20 x 5.5 cm. Leather binding; board with outer blind double fillet and a single gilt fillet along the edges. Spine with five raised bands. Printer's mark to title page. Decorative initials and some decorative head and tail pieces.

Pages - xx, 818, [123], and last page blank. Some bibliographies say 122, but they are wrong (Fff2 verso is page 818)

Collation - A2, paragraph3-10, A-Z8, Aa-Zz8, Aaa-Nnn8

Collates complete according to USTC, ESTC, and Worldcat (there's an old note, tucked-in, about a possible half-title in an old bookseller description, but none of the modern bibliographies record this).

Condition -

See pictures. Recornered and rebacked but tastefully (and possibly long ago) executed, blending very well. Binding worn, rubbed, etc; boards possibly 17th century. Large rubbed spot on front board. Page edges darkened. Pastedowns lifted and cut out leaving stub (likely looking for valuable manuscript waste used by binder), no crash material. 1st and last leaves darkened where oiling turn-ins affected them. Text block toned throughout with occasional fox spots, page edge chips/tears, thumbing, candle ember marks, dog-eared pages and ink spots. Title page with "C.G." written on it and the publishers underlined; more darkening and fraying of edges to this leaf. Small worm track in 1st several gatherings. Occasional moisture mark from top edge and bottom, mostly marginal and into the headers. Another worm track at marginal outer corner occasional, small. Bottom corner Dd4 chipped. Hh6 fore-edge repair, worming to next 3 leaves there. Small hole Kk4 margin. Mid-book fore-edge worming marginal and small. Small hole in last printed leaf, no text affected. Rear blank endpaper with bookseller graphite marks.