MONARDES, Nicolas (1493-1588)

First edition of Clusius’ (Charles de l’Ecluses) Latin abreviation of Monardes’ first two books on the medicinal discoveries in the New World, Dos libros de todas las cosas de Indias Occidentales al uso de la medicina (Things Brought from Our West Indies which can be Used in Medicine) and Segunda parte . . . Tabacco, sassafras . . . both printed in Seville in 1569 and 1571 respectively. It is the first comprehensive work relating to the medicinal values of the plants of the New World. Monardes, a Spanish physician, never visisted the Americas but established a botanical garden devoted exclusively to the American flora. He tested the medicinal properties of many plants on his patients. He was the first to write about the arrow poison curare and about tobacco, which the West Indians used in medicine. Its manifold uses attracted the widest attention among European physicians, who became busily engaged in prescribing tobacco and in formulating new principles for its application.

Collation: Pp 88, (8). With 9 woodcuts of plants, and one of an armadillo. The first 16 leaves incl. title repaired with loss of text. Early marginalia and underlinings. Contemporary vellum, bound together with Foreest, De incerto, 1589.

Provenance: Johan Salberg (1741-1810).

References: Garrison & Morton, 1817 (Monardes, 1565 ed.); Hunt Catalogue of Botanical Books, vol. I(1958), Nos 118 & 120; Lilly Library, Notable Medical Books, (1976), p 43 (Monardes 1569 ed.). Major, A History of Medicine,1954, I, p 473. Eimas, Heirs of Hippocrates, pp 121-122SLS 500.