25 FOLDING COPPER PLATE ENGRAVINGS. Dictionaire ou Traite Universel des Drogues Simples

Amsterdam: aux Depens de la Compagnie, 1716. Third edition. 1716

MAGNIFICENT ENCYCLOPEDIA OF DRUGS AND THEIR ORIGINS ILLUSTRATED WITH 25 FOLDING COPPER PLATE ENGRAVINGS, EACH CONTAINING 16 IMAGES OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS.

10 inches tall hardcover, 18th century full leather binding, spine with raised bands, gilt tooled compartments, gilt red leather title label, all edges stained red, original marbled endpapers, red & black letterpress title page, engraved emblem of booksellers of Amsterdam, ""Vis Unita Major"", [xx], 590 pp, [58], 25 folding copper plate engravings, each containing 16 images of plants and animals (total 400 images, each with identification). Corners bumped, covers worn, spine bright with ends frayed, binding tight, light scattered foxing of text, plates clean and bright, strong impressions. A very good copy of a scarce illustrated pharmacopeia describing the names, origins, qualities, of drugs derived from animals, vegetables, and minerals. In custom archival mylar cover. TEXT IN FRENCH.

NICOLAS LEMERY (1645 1715), Biography in Nature vol. 156, page 598 (1945): ""Among the students of medicine and pharmacy who did good work during what has been called ""the dawn of scientific chemistry"" was the Frenchman Nicolas Lemery, the tercentenary of whose birth falls on November 17. He was born at Rouen, and as a youth he spent some years with Glazer at the Jardin du Roi in Paris, but found his master much imbued with the dreams of the alchemists. Proceeding to the University of Montpelier, he spent three years studying medicine, pharmacy and natural history, and then after travelling through various parts of France took up his residence in Paris. By his lectures he gained a wide reputation which was much enhanced by the publication in 1675 of his ""Cours de Chymie"", which in eighty years went through thirteen editions and was translated into Latin, German, Italian, Spanish and English. Scarcely had he sprung into fame than, through being a Calvinist, he found himself threatened by persecution and, like many of his countrymen, fled to England. Embracing Catholicism, however, he was enabled to return to France and resume his lecturing, and in 1699 was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences. Among his other writings were his ""Pharmacopée universelle"" and his ""Traité universel des drogues simple"", both published in 1697. ""Chemistry,"" he said, ""is a science of observation, it can only be based on what is palpable and demonstrative."" Thomas Thomson wrote of him that he was ""The first Frenchman who completely stripped chemistry of its mysticism, and presented it to the world in all its native simplicity"". HEAVY ITEM REQUIRES EXTRA SHIPPING COSTS--PLEASE INQUIRE BEFORE PLACING ORDER.