[Rarebooks] fa: THE DETECTOR OF QUACKERY: MEDICAL, PHILOSOPHICAL, LITERARY &c. - John Corry 1802

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, July 12. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/onqyjs8

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.

John Corry: The Detector of Quackery; or, Analyser of Medical, Philosophical, Political, Dramatic, and Literary Imposture. Comprehending a Sketch of the Manners of the Age. London: Printed for B. Crosby [et al], 1802. Second edition. Small 8vo (19.25 cm), untrimmed in modern crimson and black cloth; [4], 164, [4] pp. Wellcome II p.394.

An uncommon — and uncommonly entertaining — title. The author takes aim at quackery and fraud in a number of fields, most especially medicine, his views on which take up the first 71 pages of the work, wherein he discusses cures, panaceas, "empirical homicide," Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health, the nostrum peddler William Brodum, Mr. Perkins's Metallic Tractors, etc. He then goes on to expose humbuggery in natural philosophy (Thomas Beddoes and his "Pneumatic Institution," Count Rumford, Erasmus Darwin, Patrick Colquhoun, etc.), modern manners politics, the theatre ("the puerile and vulgar productions of the present race of dramatists…"), and literature (M.G. Lewis's Tales of Wonder, puffing advertisements, "conceited foreigners… Frenchmen and Germans, who endeavour to illuminate our minds by communicating their ideas in English," etc.).

Modest toning to the leaves, light dust-soiling to the untrimmed edges of the text block, a few small spots and light touches of soiling here and there, otherwise clean and firmly bound in a fresh and bright, if somewhat odd, modern binding.