BOERHAAVE, Herman. Boerhaave’s Aphorisms: Concerning the Knowledge and Cure of Diseases. Translated from the Last Edition Printed in Latin at Leyden, 1722. With Useful Observations and Explanations. London: Printed for William and John Innys, at the West-End of St. Paul’s, 1724. 8vo.
An early English edition of one of the most influential medical textbooks of the eighteenth century, by Herman Boerhaave (1668–1738), the celebrated Dutch physician and professor of medicine at Leiden.
Boerhaave’s Aphorisms reduced an immense body of contemporary medical knowledge into almost 1,500 numbered observations on the recognition and treatment of disease. Beginning with general principles of diagnosis, the work ranges through inflammation, fever, diseases of the chest and abdomen, neurological disorders, gout, renal and urinary complaints, and contemporary therapeutics.
His teaching at Leiden attracted students from across Europe, and the Boerhaavian approach became especially influential in Britain through the developing Edinburgh medical school.
Size
20 × 12.5 cm.
Condition
Fair to good overall. In its original contemporary panelled calf, substantially worn but retaining considerable period character. The boards are rubbed and scuffed, with pronounced wear to the leather, worn corners and losses and deterioration at the spine ends. The joints are cracked and the binding is fragile in appearance, although the boards remain attached.
Internally considerably better than the exterior suggests: generally clean and sound, with expected age-toning and occasional light marks or staining, including some discolouration to the title page and some corner folding marks. Complete through p. 444 with the final four-page index. An unrestored copy in its original early eighteenth-century binding.
Bibliographical Note
[16], 444, [4] pp. Second English edition, revised from Boerhaave’s enlarged Leiden text of 1722. The English translation and explanatory observations derive from J. Delacoste’s first English edition of 1715, although Delacoste’s name is omitted from the title page of the present edition; Lindeboom and ESTC record the 1724 edition under Delacoste.
References
ESTC T71033; LBB 194.
