MEDICINE - Lot 108

MEDICINE Anonymous medical MANUSCRIT of pharmaceutical recipes and remedies. [Late 18th - early 19th century]. Autograph manuscript of 3 folio pages, in brown ink. Curious manuscript collection of domestic pharmacopoeia and medical remedies, combining galenic traditions, popular therapeutics and chemical preparations. The manuscript contains a number of detailed recipes for treating the "seven main limbs", with dosage instructions and precise compositions. They include - an "Elixir of Paracelsus' Properties" made from Alexandrian myrrh, hepatic aspic and oriental saffron; - a "Médicament spécifique pour les 7 membres principaux" using oils, vitriol spirit, human skull, coral, camphor, diaphoretic antimony and other pharmaceutical substances; - a preparation of "Jupiter Salt"; - several therapeutic notes indicating doses and methods of administration; - popular remedies for intestinal worms: "A large piece of bitter orange in wine for the elderly". or : "Worse oil, dissolved in a little white wine [...] or make pills with a little agaric and wormwood syrup." All of this testifies to the persistence of Paracelsian and Spagyric traditions in the practical medicine of the 18th and 19th centuries, at a time when learned medicine, alchemical chemistry and empirical remedies still coexisted. Legible, regular handwriting. A few bends and light foxing, not serious. Interesting testimony to ancient pharmacology and domestic medicine.