First published in the mid-17th century, the Cours de Chymie quickly became one of the most influential textbooks of chemical medicine, shaping the education of generations of apothecaries, physicians, and alchemically minded experimenters. This 1688 Paris edition, the seventh edition, issued by Estienne Michallet, reflects the work’s continued importance as the century drew toward the Enlightenment.
The text presents, in systematic fashion, the operations of practical chemistry “in use in medicine,” with step-by-step instructions for laboratory practice and reasoned explanations accompanying each process. Its methodical clarity stood in marked contrast to the more cryptic alchemical writings of the previous century. For the first time, chemical operations (distillations, calcinations, separations) could be studied in a manner both practical and didactic, making the Cours a pivotal bridge between esoteric alchemy and empirical chemistry.
Illustrated with three wonderful engraved plates (pp. 44–54), the work offers visual guidance for apparatus and procedures. The text presents the reader not only with technical recipes but with the intellectual rationale that promised access to nature’s hidden workings. One can sense in its pages the bustling world of the early laboratory: vessels, retorts, furnaces, and the unmistakable scent of sulfur and mercury at the threshold of modern science.
Cours de Chymie Contenant La Maniere de Faire Les Operations Qui Sont en Usage dans La Medicine, par une Methode Facile: Avec des Raissonements fur Chaque Operation, pour l’instruction de ceux qui veulent s’appliquer a cette Science. Septième Edition. Paris: Chez Estienne Michallet. 8vo. Contemporary leather, spine richly gilt. 1 blank, 8 leaves (title, contents), 655 pp. Three plates within text (pp. 44–54). External wear to edges and corners; scratch to front board; light stain upper corner of first 200 pp.; worm-track to upper corner pp. 593–624 with negligible loss to a few letters. Contemporary ownership signature. Overall very good.
First published in the mid-17th century, the Cours de Chymie quickly became one of the most influential textbooks of chemical medicine, shaping the education of generations of apothecaries, physicians, and alchemically minded experimenters. This 1688 Paris edition, the seventh edition, issued by Estienne Michallet, reflects the work’s continued importance as the century drew toward the Enlightenment.
The text presents, in systematic fashion, the operations of practical chemistry “in use in medicine,” with step-by-step instructions for laboratory practice and reasoned explanations accompanying each process. Its methodical clarity stood in marked contrast to the more cryptic alchemical writings of the previous century. For the first time, chemical operations (distillations, calcinations, separations) could be studied in a manner both practical and didactic, making the Cours a pivotal bridge between esoteric alchemy and empirical chemistry.
Illustrated with three wonderful engraved plates (pp. 44–54), the work offers visual guidance for apparatus and procedures. The text presents the reader not only with technical recipes but with the intellectual rationale that promised access to nature’s hidden workings. One can sense in its pages the bustling world of the early laboratory: vessels, retorts, furnaces, and the unmistakable scent of sulfur and mercury at the threshold of modern science.
Cours de Chymie Contenant La Maniere de Faire Les Operations Qui Sont en Usage dans La Medicine, par une Methode Facile: Avec des Raissonements fur Chaque Operation, pour l’instruction de ceux qui veulent s’appliquer a cette Science. Septième Edition. Paris: Chez Estienne Michallet. 8vo. Contemporary leather, spine richly gilt. 1 blank, 8 leaves (title, contents), 655 pp. Three plates within text (pp. 44–54). External wear to edges and corners; scratch to front board; light stain upper corner of first 200 pp.; worm-track to upper corner pp. 593–624 with negligible loss to a few letters. Contemporary ownership signature. Overall very good.
