French Medical Receipt Book

Medical receipt book, including an unpublished "Traité des maladies du bas ventre", ff. 154v-200v.

The volume contains a very large number of receipts, often several in a row for the same complaint, covering a wide range of medicine. Several topics come up repeatedly, notably "chaud pisse", migraine, and women's complaints, including sterility (and impotence in men).

Following the "Traité des maladies du bas ventre" there is a lengthy section on opiates. Many of the receipts have comments annotated beside them in the margin, ranging from "très bon" to "dangereux". Many names and sources are given, chiefly other surgeons, in all parts of France, although there are a few female contributors as well.

Signed by Edme Hugon on the verso of the last leaf. Spine title reads "Livre de Recept".

Produced in Aix-en-Provence.

c.1730-1751

1 volume 1 volume: approx. 320 x 200 mm. 238 ff. (original pagination [1]-30 and unnumbered). Original dark brown leather-covered boards.

Purchased from Blackwell Rare Books, Oxford, August 2012.

Edme Hugon was a surgeon at Aix-en-Provence, a member of the Academy of Sciences of Lyons and a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Surgeons. His father Etienne had been a surgeon and apothecary before him. The manuscript appears to have been continued after his death in 1747 as near the end (f. 214) is a copy of a declaration of the efficacy of a remedy to staunch bleeding by members of the Royal Academy of Surgeons in Paris dated 1751; the inscription 'Ainé Hugon' on the back of the rear cover suggests that it was a younger member of the family following the medical tradition.