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Feature of the month - May 2009

The 1654 edition of Nicolas Culpeper’s Pharmacopoeia Londinensis

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From The Morning Post of Thursday November 28th 1912
The Morning Post of Thursday November 28th 1912 reported an exhibition of rare books held the previous evening at the newly built home of The Royal Society of Medicine at No. 1 Wimpole Street, "formally opened last Summer by the King." The exhibition formed part of the first of four conversaziones "to show the medical profession the advantages in the way of meeting rooms, libraries, and so forth that the Society is able to offer them."

The Post's reporter goes on to say that "of the many exhibits, the most striking, perhaps, was the demonstration by the librarian, Mr. Hewitt, on the epidiascope of some of the rare and curious volumes that are in the possession of the Society."

The 1654 edition of Nicolas Culpeper’s Pharmacopoeia Londinensis

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One of the "remarkable series of engravings" from Sir Samuel Garth's The Dispensary that so impressed the reporter from The Morning Post.
Among the items listed in Mr Hewitt's magic lantern show were the 1650 edition of Thomas Browne's Religio Medici, John Securis' Detection and Querimonie of the Daily Enormities and Abuses committed in Physick, an early work on medical ethics and education published in 1566 and devoted to a discussion of the "rashnesse and lewde temeritie of a great many surgeons." Mr Hewitt "extracted a number of curious recipes" from the Queen's Closet Opened, a book from 1656 compiled for Queen Henrietta Maria. In the opinion of The Post, the recommendations in this volume were built "on the principle that the efficacy of a medicine is dependent on its nastiness and its nauseating qualities."

Sir Samuel Garth's The Dispensary satirised the opposition of apothecaries to the establishment of out-patients' dispensaries and was the source of a "remarkable series of engravings [that were] thrown upon the screen." The reporter does not specify which edition of this work was used, but the library holds four editions published between 1699 and 1768.

The 1654 edition of Nicolas Culpeper’s Pharmacopoeia Londinensis

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Another engraving from Sir Samuel Garth's The Dispensary
Displays of Christopher Bennett's Tabidorum Theatrum, dated 1656, and "believed to be one of the oldest treatises in English on consumption", and Walter Rumsey's Organon Salutis, published in 1657, ended this fascinating lecture.

It is not known quite what became of the epidiascope, but the books shown that evening in 1912 are still held by the Library of the Royal Society of Medicine. In addition, the Society continues to hold exhibitions drawn mainly from its stock of old-and-rare books, and continues to host similar evenings for the benefit of new members to show the many advantages that the Society is still able to offer them.

Bibliography

Sir Thomas Browne.
Religio Medici.
Lugd. Batavorum : Apud Franciscum Hackium., 1650.
Royal Society of Medicine Library: L.9.a.4

John Securis
A detection and querimonie of the daily enormities and abuses co[m]mitted in physick : concernyng the thre parts therof: that is, the physitions part, the part of the surgeons, and the arte of poticaries. Dedicated vnto the two most famous vniuersities Oxford and Cambridge. Nowe lately set foorth by Iohn Securis physition.
[Londini : In ędibus Thomę Marshi], 1566.
Royal Society of Medicine Library: L.5.a.12

The queens closet opened : Incomparable secrets in physick, chyrurgery, preserving, candying and cookery ... / transcribed from the true copies of her Majesty's own receipt-books, by W.M.
London : Nathaniel Brook and William Place, 1656.
Royal Society of Medicine Library: L.9.a.21

Samuel Garth.
The dispensary : a poem. In six canto's.
The third edition / corrected by the author.
London : Printed: and sold by John Nutt ..., 1699.
Royal Society of Medicine Library: L.6.b.12

Christopher Bennett.
Tabidorum theatrum: sive Pthisios, atrophiae, & hecticae xenodochium. Londini : typis Tho. Newcomb, impensis Sam. Thompson, ad insigne Equi candidi in Coemeterio Paulino, 1656.
Royal Society of Medicine Library: L.6.a.3

Organon salutis: an instrument to cleanse the stomach : as also divers new experiments of the virtue of tobacco and coffee: how much they conduce to preserve humane health. / By W[alter] R[umsey] ...
London : Printed by R. Hodgkinsonne, for D. Pakeman, 1657.
Royal Society of Medicine Library: L.6.a.10

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