1554 RARE Antique MEDICAL BOOK Medicine Herbal RECIPES Botany PHARMACY Catalog

  

Pedanii Dioscorides Anazarbei, De Medica Materia Libri Six, Joanne R Vellio Suessionensi Interprete. Hos Accessit, Praeter Pharmacorum Simplicium Catalogum, Copiosus Omni Serme Medolarum Siue Curationum Index.

Lugduni, Apud Jacobum Flaure 1554. Pedanii Dioscorides (40-90AD) was a Greco-Roman author, is considered to be the founder of pharmacology through the writing of this book. De Materia Medica was the main source of information on medicinal drugs from the 1st century until the 18th century and contains descriptions and recipes of over 600 plants, 35 animal recipes and 90 mineral ones. This book is six books in one with 553 pages; with about an additional 100 or so pages containing the index and closing statements. John Ruele, of Lyons France.

Translated the book from the Greek to Latin and I went through. Translating some of the Latin into English. The recipes are absolutely fascinating. For instance, in the first chapter, Dioscorides recommends extracting urine out of the stomach of a hedgehog, to be mixed with ashes to help purge leprosy and to clean out sores.

Chapter two discusses using a seahorse along with some pitch (tar or resin), lard or oil to help with baldness. Book two, chapter 51 discusses the use of beetles, cockroaches in boiling vinegar for the idle and imbecile alike; it also discusses its use for a natural color in the use of a dye. Book three, chapter 75 discusses the use of melanthium for curing a headache. The chapter states it is a little shrub with slender shoots that are similar to ragwort, but much more slender, small, with a little head at the top like a poppy; that is black, sharp and sweet-smelling and used to sprinkle on loaves. It is applied to the forehead or can be poured into the nostrils.

It also states that mixed with vinegar it will remove freckles, expel roundworms. If you pound it out and bind it up in a cloth it can be inhaled for those troubled by mucous. Polypodium grows on mossy rocks and on the wild stocks of oaks; the height of twenty centimeters, like fern, somewhat rough, cut-in, but not divided as thinly. The hairy root lies underneath, with two curled locks like a polypus, the thickness of a little finger, but scraped it is green within, sharp, and with a somewhat sweet taste, and it is purging. To purge it is given boiled together with a hen, fish, beets or mallows.

Dried, powdered, and sprinkled into honey and water, it expels phlegm and bile; and the root (pounded into small pieces when applied) is good for cleaning, and for cracks between the fingers. The extensive medical writing and herbal recipes of Dioscorides rival Hippocrates and Orabasius with q. Uite a few of the remedies in the book still having viable efficacy and use today. Dioscorides worked in the time of the Roman militias when emperors Claudius and Nero were in power, and his book was not rediscovered during the Renaissance like a lot of other books, but rather, has never left circulation. This is a very rare book with only a few left in.

This 466-year-old book measures 4x3 and is 543 pages long with about an additional 100 pages of an index in the back of the book. The vellum is still in good condition with only some slight fading on the back cover. The binding is loose and some pages have separated; all appear to be present.

There are no end-papers and the former owner's signature is on the inside front cover; dated 1883. No other writings or markings, some foxing and toning present.

There is some light oxidation on the edges of the paper and the back cover of the book. The item "1554 RARE Antique MEDICAL BOOK Medicine Herbal RECIPES Botany PHARMACY Catalog" is in sale since Thursday, December 12, 2019. This item is in the category "Books\Antiquarian & Collectible". The seller is "biblio_emporium" and is located in Kissimmee, Florida. This item can be shipped worldwide.

• Year Printed: 1554
• Modified Item: No
• Country/Region of Manufacture: France
• Topic: Medicine
• Binding: Leather
• California Prop 65 Warning: N/A
• Region: Europe
• Author: Pedanius Dioscorides
• Subject: Science & Medicine
• Original/Facsimile: Original
• Language: Latin
• Publisher: Jacobum Faure
• Place of Publication: Lyons