Name/Title
Pharmacopoeia Londinensis; or, The London DispensatoryDescription
CULPEPER, Nich. Pharmacopoeia Londinensis; or, The London Dispensatory Further Adorned by the Studies and Collections of the Fellows now Living, of the Said College. Boston: Printed for John Allen, for Nicholas Booone [sic], Daniel Henchman, and John Edwards, 1720. 1st American ed. 8vo. [24], 305,[35] pp.
Rare in the trade; we can trace only four copies offered in the last 50 years.
The first herbal printed in North America as well as the first full-length medical book printed in North America. The earliest known medical work printed in North America is Thomas Thatcher's A Brief Rule to Guide the Common People of New-England.in the Small Pocks or Measles, a 1678 Boston broadside known in one copy. The next work is a 1708 Boston printing of Culpeper's The English physician, a 94-page pamphlet. The London Dispensatory 'enjoyed a wide popularity in the colonies, perhaps because of its Puritan slant and its bias toward the household treatment of illness' (Norman).Other Names and Numbers
Other Number
Evans 2114. Austin 591. Guerra a-48. Garrison-Morton 1828.2. Norman 542 (this copy with his bookplate on front pastedown).Condition
Notes
Contemporary sprinkled sheep, tooled in blind with a paneled design and decorative ornaments, raised spine bands. Light scattered foxing, in a fine binding. A very good or better copy, housed in custom full brown morocco clamshell box.General Notes
Note Type
Historical NoteNote
First American Edition. This 1720 Boston edition of Culpeper’s Pharmacopoeia Londinensis enjoys the triple distinction of being the first herbal, the first pharmacopoeia, and the first full-length medical book published in the American colonies. It is the earliest American medical book possibly obtainable today. This copy is also remarkable for its original American blind-tooled sheep binding. This is also probably one of the earliest American bindings that one could expect to obtain today.
The only known predecessors of our edition are the unique surviving copy of Thomas Thatcher’s Brief Rule to Guide the Common People of New England. . . in the Small Pocks or Measles (Boston, 1677; described as “a single sheet of paper”), and a 1708 Boston reprint of The English Physician, ascribed to Culpeper on the title-page, but most probably only as an attempt to capitalize on his famous name. The 1708 edition has been essentially unobtainiable since the 19th century. The American edition of Culpeper’s work enjoyed a wide popularity in the colonies, perhaps because of its Puritan slant and its bias toward the household treatment of illness. Culpeper’s writings show a genuine interest in providing health care for the poor: his remedies contained only cheap, readily obtainable English herbs, and on his deathbed, he stated that he “never gave a patient two medicines where one would serve.” It was this populist attitude toward medical care that had prompted Culpeper in 1649 to publish his English translation of the Pharmacopoeia Londiniensis, an act that earned him the enmity of London’s medical establishment. Austin 591. Cowen, “Boston editions of Nicholas Culpeper,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 9 (1956), pp. 156-165. Garrison-Morton.com 1828.2. Norman C-542.