[Rarebooks] fa: CLUYT - OPUSCULA DUO SINGULARIA 1634 - On COCONUTS & MAYFLIES

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, May 20. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/87dgpd4

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.


Augerii Clutii [Outger Cluyt, aka Augerius Clutius] M.D.: Opuscula duo singularia. I. De Nuce Medica. II. De Hemerobio sive Ephemero insecto, & Majali Verme. Amsterodami [Amsterdam]: Jacobi Charpentier, 1634. FIRST EDITION. Small 4to (20 x 15 cm) bound in early/period vellum; [38] + 103 + [3] pp. Three title-pages with large woodcuts and numerous woodcuts in the text.

Two parts in one, the first part dealing with the Maldive double coconut, its attributes and alleged medicinal properties. Cluyt advocated its use, in combination with other drugs, in the treatment of epilepsy, paralysis, convulsions, dysentery, colic, difficult labors, &c. The second part discusses the mayfly. While not the first (or most accurate) work on the subject, it is an early, important and  well-illustrated study of ephemeroptera. Cluyt (1590–1650), whose first name is variously spelled Outger, Outgert, Outgers, or Outgaert, was a Dutch physician and medical botanist who helped lay out the botanical garden at the University of Montepellier, France, traveled widely through Europe and North Africa, and was once captured by pirates, before establishing his practice in Amsetrdam.

Institutional stamp in gilt to the bottom of the front cover and a very faint, almost imperceptible ink stamp to the title-page; no other library markings. Vellum binding stained and soiled, spine darkened with wear to the head and foot and a short horizontal tear at the midpoint; lacking a folding plate of the coconut, as is often the case, apparently; some occasional spots and intermittent browning to the leaves; otherwise quite clean and sound, firmly bound. Early ownership signature of Paul Manfred.