[Rarebooks] fa: THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS 1684 - w/ An Account Account of its Proceedings against Empiricks (Alchemists & Quacks)

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now - the last for awhile, you may be happy to note - auctions ending MONDAY, June 4. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/7lfjjmf

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.


Charles Goodall: The Royal College of Physicians of London Founded and Established by Law; As appears by Letters Patents, Acts of Parliament, adjudged Cases, &c. And An Historical Account of the College’s Proceedings against Empiricks and unlicensed Practisers in every Princes Reign from their first Incorporation to the Murther of the Royal Martyr, King Charles the First. London: Printed by M. Flesher, for Walter Kettilby, at the Bishop’s-Head in St. Paul’s Church-Yard, 1684. FIRST EDITION. Small 4to (20 x 16 cm) bound in recent cloth and marbled boards, gilt-stamped spine label; [10], 288, [52], 305-472, [12] pp.; with an index and imprimatur leaf (laid down on to title verso); separate title-page for An Historical Account, though the register is continuous. ESTC R8914; Wing G1091.

Title-page dust-soiled and browned, with two closed tears and an old ownership signature heavily inked out, small surface abrasion with loss of first two letters of the word "Proceedings"; some browning to the edges of the text block, mild age-toning to the leaves; otherwise very clean and sound in a handsome modern binding.

The Royal College of Physicians, granted a royal charter by Henry VIII in 1516, was, at the time of Goodall's book, embroiled in a fierce debate between the "mechanical" and the "academic" sides of medicine. Goodall comes down squarely on the side of the latter, accusing them of having been "engaged in the late rebellion and never acknowledging the duty they owed to God and their king" (ODNB). Of particular interest (to us, at any rate) are the many colorful accounts of the College’s "Proceedings against Empiricks", i.e., alchemists, quacks, frauds, and other "unlicensed Impostors," during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Queen Mary, Elizabeth I, James I and Charles I (e.g. "One Sylva an Italian was charged before the President and Censors for evil practice, in that he undertook to cure an old woman by suffumigation, with which she died…").