MEDICAL BOTANY
1832. Item #87712
WOODVILLE, William. MEDICAL BOTANY: Containing systematic and general descriptions, with plates of all the medicinal plants, comprehended in the catalogues of the materia medica, as published by the Royal Colleges of Physicians of London, Edinburg, and Dublin; together with the principal medicinal plants not included in those pharmacopoeias. [...] The botanical descriptions arranged and corrected by Dr. William Jackson Hooker [...]. The new medico-botanical portion supplied by G. Spratt, [...] under whose immediate inspection the whole of the plates have been coloured. London: John Bohn, 1832. The third and most complete edition of Woodville's classic work: Five volumes, including the first printing of the supplemental fifth volume, which was limited to 200 copies and sold separately. Illustrated with 310 hand-colored plates, 273 of 274 engraved by James Sowerby (1757-1822) and 37 lithographs by George Spratt, including one duplicate plate. Sowerby's plates are numbered, and the missing plate is "Pansie," number 90. Plate number 112 was never published, but the work was issued with two (different) plates numbered 181 as compensation. Spratt's plates are unnumbered, and the duplicate plate is "Cinchona cordifolia." Volumes 1-4 are continuously paginated: 824 pp., + [28] pp. indices. Volume 5: 157 pp., + [12] pp. indices. Quarto, 28 x 18.5 cm (10 by 7.25 in), in modern two-tone (medium green/dark green) cloth bindings with gilt lettering on spines. Ex library, with no external marks and some library marks within, though not excessive: all volumes have stamps to title-page, first text leaf, on verso of a couple of plates, and sometimes on another text page. Nineteenth-century (private ownership) book label on front pastedowns. Occasional light to moderate foxing and/or toning affecting some text pages and plates - though mostly text pages. It is generally clean and bright, and quite attractive overall. First compiled by William Woodville (1752-1805), a Quaker physician and botanist, and issued in parts from 1790 to 1795, MEDICAL BOTANY remained the standard illustrated book of plants of the British pharmacopoeia until the late 1870s. This third edition of MEDICAL BOTANY, edited and expanded by the British botanist William Jackson Hooker (1785-1865), who created the modern Royal Garden.
Price: $4,750.00