The major medical book of the 17th-century, translated for the general public. The sixth edition of William Salmon's popular English translation of this important medical text, originally published by the Royal College of Physicians in Latin in 1618. In a handsome, 19th-century vellum binding.

Backed by a Royal Proclamation of King James I, the Pharmacopoeia Londinensis was 'an officially sanctioned list of all known medical drugs, their effects and directions on their use. No one was allowed to concoct any medicine or sell any substance if it did not appear in the Pharmacopoeia Londinensis'. This publication centralised English medical power within the College, clawing back some of that lost when the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries was created the year before. ('A Weapon Dressed as a Book', Royal College of Physicians website). The first English translation, by Nicholas Culpeper, appeared in 1649, and Salmon's translation, with additional commentary and material on chemical theories of medicine, was first published in 1678. Proving popular with the general public, it went through seven editions up to 1716. The book's practical, domestic focus is certainly reflected in the well-used nature of this copy.

The translator William Salmon (1644-1713) was an interesting figure operating at the intersection of local, domestic medicine and the professionalised world of gentlemen physicians. Born in 1644, he was apprenticed to a 'mountebank' or snake-oil salesman. By 1641 he had 'established a practice in London near the Smithfield gate of St Bartholomew's Hospital where, as was common among irregular types of practitioners, he offered his services to people denied admission to hospital' (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography). Salmon published a large number of his own books, mainly based on material from his extensive library, including not only medical advice but anatomy and physiology, religion, and alchemy and metaphysics.

'In 1699 Salmon joined in the controversy over the role of the Royal College of Physicians. The college leadership came under attack as it attempted to implement its own internal disciplinary actions against certain members, to prosecute impostors practising outside the bounds of the college, and to maintain control over the Society of Apothecaries through establishing a dispensary... Salmon's Rebuke to the Authors of a Blew-Book, Call'd The State of Physick in London (1699) warned against the college's continuing monopolization of the profession' (ODNB). It is therefore no surprise that he chose to translate the Pharmacopia, making professional medical knowledge available to a wider public than those who could read Latin.

Sixth edition; 8vo (17 x 10 cm); a few contemporary and 19th-century ownership inscriptions and notes, title stained and torn with some loss of text and mounted on linen, linen repair to A2 slightly affecting the text, and to the final leaf slightly affecting the text, old tape repairs to B1 and B2, a few smaller repairs, contents tanned and damp-stained; 19th-century vellum, red morocco label, gilt floral roll to tail of spine, marbled endpapers, red speckled edges, bookplate, binding a little rubbed and dulled, small black spot to the tail of the spine; a good copy.