Lot 11E email save

BULLEIN, William . Bulwarke of defe[n]ce againste

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London: Jhon Kyngston, 1562. Folio (263 x 175 mm). Collation: C4 a-q6 r4; Aa-Hh6 Ii4; A-H6 (-H6, cancelled) 2H-I6 2I-O6. 244 leaves (of 251), lacking leaves A6, h3, i3, q1 and q2 in Part 1, and O1.6 in Part 4. Four parts, irregularly foliated. Black letter, shoulder notes. General title within woodcut architectural border (McKerrow & Ferguson 68), large woodcut arms on title verso, 5 nearly full-page woodcuts including three human male figures demonstrating sores or illnesses, an anatomical man skeleton, and a portrait of the author, 5 small cuts of stills and surgical instruments, woodcut ornaments, woodcut & metalcut initials. Contemporary calf (rebacked). Condition: Lacking 7 leaves as above, some soiling and staining, many shoulder notes, some headlines, and text of 2 or 3 leaves cropped, fraying or tears affecting foliation or text of 4 or 5 leaves, m6 in book 4 shorter & frayed, possibly supplied. Provenance: a few early marginalia. first edition, very rare, of an early English medical book, including one of the first English herbals. Written in colloquial English prose in entertaining dialogue form, the four parts cover surgery, the responsibilities of physicians, surgeons and apothecaries, medicinal recipies, etc. There are instructions for apothecaries, conversations between sores and surgeons, and a humourous verse description of a quack. Part 1, the Booke of Simples, is one of the earliest English herbals. "Although substantially Galenist in approach, the book contains some of the earliest printed references to Paracelsus and chemical medicines in English medical writing, together with a discussion of a number of mineral and chemical substances and methods of distillation" (Oxford DNB). Copies of the second edition of 1579 occasionally surface, but we can locate no other copies of this first edition in the trade; ABPC lists no copies at auction in the past 30 years. ESTC S107132; STC (2nd ed.) 4033. NLM/Durling 778.

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