A Rich Storehouse, or Treasurie for the Diseased. Wherein are many approved medicines for divers and sundry diseases, which have beene long hidden, and not come to light before this time. First set forth for the benefit and comfort of the poorer sort of people, that are not of abilitie to go the Physicions. By G. W. And now seventhly augmented and inlarged by A. T. Practitioner in Physicke and Chirurgerie.
London: Printed by Richard Badger, for Philemon Stephens and Christopher Meredith, 1630.
Price: $6,800.00
Quarto: 18.3 x 13.7 cm. [12] lvs., 317 p. Collation: *4, A-X8
“SEVENTH EDITION” (that is, styled “seventhly augmented” on the title but apparently only the sixth printing. The first edition was printed in 1596.) This copy has that variant colophon dated 1631 (“Copies vary: colophon dated 1630 or 1631.” ESTC). For another issue, see ESTC S123361.
Bound in -rather worn- contemporary calf, rebacked and re-cornered, the corners rounded. Text in good condition, with variable browning and a little chipping to the edges of the title and final leaf; small paper flaw at corner of leaf M3, affecting a catchword. Provenance: 18th-century bookplate of George Edwards (1694-1773), ornithologist, artist, member of the Royal Society (from 1757), and bedell of the Royal College of Physicians (1733), of which he styled himself “librarian” on his bookplate. All editions are rare. No more than five copies of any edition are held by U.S. institutions.
A popular book of home remedies, “which are made with little charge, for the poorer sort of people”, with specifics on ingredients and preparation, and directions for use. There are recipes for treating venereal diseases such gonorrhea (“running of the raines”), and syphilis (“the French Pox”, the “Great Pox”), for which mercury is proposed as a treatment; medicines for snakebite, rabies (“the biting of a madde Dogge”), gunshot wounds, gunpowder burns, mouthwash for gum disease (“or else to wash your teeth that be hollow and stinke”); to prevent gangrene and epileptic episodes, to treat breast cancer, etc.
There are numerous treatments for pregnant women and for post-partum issues, including delivering a still-born infant, “A Medicine for the swelling of a Womans breast, after the wayning of a Childe”, “An excellent good Medicine for a woman labouring of Childbirth”, “A present remedy for a woman that traueleth with childe, to helpe her to a speady and good deliuerance”…
There are 22 different methods for treating or preventing plague. To prevent infection, people are instructed to “correct the ayre” in their houses: “Take Rosemary dryed, Iuniper, Bay leaues, or Frankincense, and cast the same vpon the coles in a chafingdish, and receiue the fume or smoke thereof into your head.” One should drink certain elixirs when in the presence of the infected: “When you must of necessitie come into any place where any infectious persons are, it is good for you to smell to the roote of Angellica, Gentian, or Valerian, and to chew any of these in your mouth.” Three of the treatments are to care for sores or boils that erupt as a result of infection.
Mental Health: There are two chapters on caring for the brain:
Cap. 144. “Thinges [that are] good and holosome for the Braine”, such as: To drinke Wine measurablie, To keepe the Head warme, To sleepe measurablie, To heare litle noise of Musicke, To eate Mustarde & Pepper, To smell the sauour of Red-roses, and to washe the Temples of your Heade often with Rose-Water.
Cap. 145. “Thinges are ill for the Braine”, such as: Gluttony, Drunkennes, Anger, Hauines of minde, To stande much bare-headed, Ouermuch Bathing, Milke, Ouermuch Knocking or Noise, & to smell to a white Rose.
The book is written in such a way that people can avoid the expense of a pharmacist to compound the drugs or a doctor to administer them. Each entry has specifics on ingredients and preparation, and directions for use. As an example, the treatment for burns reads:
“Take Daysie rootes, Plantine, Waybroad leaues, Greene goose Donnge, and the Greene Barke of an Elder Tree, of each of them a like quantitie, and a quattitie, of Oyle Olyffe, stampe them all very well together, and straine them thorough a fine Linnen Cloath, and with a Feather let the Partie greeued annointe him selfe therewith, as often as hee shall thinke good, and this will helpe him without all doubt.”
Authorship: The title page of the first edition (1596) of this book indicated that it was the work of “A.T.”. The second edition (1601) attributed the “correcting, augmenting, and enlarging” to “G.W.”(whom ESTC identifies as an otherwise obscure “George Wateson”.) Beginning with the edition of 1612, the credit was reversed, with “G.W.” as author and “A.T.” as reviser. Neither man has been satisfactorily identified.
ESTC S107712; STC 23610; Welcome 6195