An Antiquarian Herbal Medicine Book by Nich. Culpepper, London 1799
This lot is a copy of The English Physician Enlarged, by Nich. Culpepper, Student in Physic and Astrology, printed for the Booksellers in London in 1799. The title page describes the work as enlarged with three hundred and sixty nine medicines made of English herbs, and it is presented as an astrologo-physical discourse on the vulgar herbs of this nation. The title page also lists seven subjects covered, including the making of plasters, ointments, oils, syrups and decoctions, the gathering and drying of herbs, and the preparation of medicines according to the cause and part of the body afflicted. The interior is printed in a serif typeface across small octavo pages, with running heads giving the title and page numbers. The text includes entries describing the growth, time of flowering, government by planets and medicinal virtues of plants such as the yellow water flag and flax-weed, or toad-flax. The binding is brown leather with raised edges at the spine.
Condition, Originality and Collector Interest
The book shows the age and handling expected of a volume of this date. The leather boards are scuffed, rubbed and mottled, with wear to the corners and edges, and the spine shows splitting and loss at the head and foot. The front board and the inside of the front cover carry some staining and tearing, and there are faint pencil markings and sketches on the endpapers. The pages are toned and browned, with spotting and marks to the title page and some soiling along the fore edges. The text pages appear legible and the printed content is clear, and the pencil annotations appear to be later additions rather than part of the original printing. Sold as seen. Early English herbals of this kind are of continuing interest to collectors of medical history, astrological texts and British herbal literature, and this 1799 edition with its original leather binding and manuscript traces offers a tangible link to eighteenth-century domestic medicine.