Nicolas Lemery - Traité universel des drogues simples - 1723

LEMERY (Nicolas). Universal Treatise of Simple Drugs, arranged in alphabetic order. Paris, Laurent d'Houry, 1723. 1 volume quarto, [8] f. (title, preface), 922 p., [22] f. (tables), 25 copper-engraved plates hors texte, brown leather of the period, spine with raised bands ornamented with gilded compartments. Third edition.

Nicolas Lemery (1645-1715) was a Rouen apothecary and Protestant, forced to abjure after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and then a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences. He is the author of the famous Cours de chymie (1675), which helped to separate chemistry from hermetic alchemy. The Treatise, published in 1698 as a supplement to his Pharmacopée universelle, was reissued after his death.

The drugs of the three kingdoms (animal, vegetable and mineral) are classified in alphabetical order by their Latin name. Each entry provides the synonyms, origin, selection, the “principles” and the virtues of the drug. The preface warns apothecaries and druggists against the falsifications of merchants. Several articles concern exotic substances: opium, of which Lemery asserts that the Turks keep the “true” for themselves and export only the meconium, or American papaya, described after Pison. The vocabulary of “principles” (phlegm, oil, salt) extends the spagyric and Paracelsian tradition, which Lemery rereads as a chemist. Each plate contains sixteen vignettes. They notably show gums and resins (arabic, copal, gutta, lacquer, manna, sagapenum, sandalwood, tacamahaca, adragante, sandalwood resin) and animal materia medica ( bezoar, beaver, manatee, hippopotamus, musk deer, civet, viper, ostrich). Ex libris handwritten “Lafargue” on the title, another crossed out.

The work is of interest to the history of pharmacy and chemistry, but it also remains a practical reference tool. Its double Latin and French nomenclature allows identification of old names for plants, gums and minerals. It serves practitioners of herbalism and phytotherapy, perfumers and aromatherapists, restorers and painters who still use copal, sandalwood resin or lac resin, and historians of spices and colonial trade.

Condition: average copy:.binding rubbed, corners worn, title piece missing, constant damp stain, sometimes barely noticeable but particularly visible on the plates (see photos), the plates are bound in disorder, small tears on several leaves without loss, some foxing and other minor defects. If the copy will not suit a demanding bibliophile, the binding is solid and it presents as a good working copy from period binding and complete with text and plates."}