English Medical Compendium, 16th century

A compendium of medicine compiled for use by an unknown Elizabethan practitioner, containing an incomplete English translation of John of Arderne's treatise on fistula, medical recipes, notes on medical astrology, and lists and classifications of diseases and medicaments. With an illustrated guide to urine diagnosis. There are two distinct hands, a fine, cursive secretary hand, with headings in italic, for the treatise on fistula, and the uroscopy section (ff. 5r.-39v., 119r.-22r.), and a more stolid Tudor hand for the rest. Both are probably the work of the same scribe. The treatise on fistula corresponds to a considerable extent to the version printed in 1588, and the appropriate chapter numbers are indicated below.

c.1575

140 ff. (original foliation 1-4, 1-35, 42-72, 74-107, 109-118, 119-122, 125-136, 138-139 and unnumbered, wanting ff. 36-41, 73, 108, 123, 137) The text is written in dark brown ink, on ruled paper, with headings and underlinings in red. 1 vol., 280 × 220 mm. Of the several leaves which have been cut from the volume, one at least bore a pen and ink sketch of some sort, a fragment of which can be seen at original f. 40v. Contemporary limp vellum binding, with remains of ties.

Purchased at Bonham's sale, 23 May 1995, lot 204.

This manuscript is closely related to Trinity College Cambridge MS R.14.52, as discussed by Paivi Pahta, in Sex, Aging, & Death in a Medieval Medical Compendium: Trinity College Cambridge MS R.14.52, Its Texts, Language, and Scribe, edited by M. Teresa Tavormina, 2 vols. (Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Tempe, Arizona, 2006), pp.40-46

Various marks of ownership: 'by me Steven Dallymond Draper' in a contemporary hand, on front paste-down, which also bears, apart from a few additional recipes, the following verse, 'The hand ys bad/The matter ys good/peele of the barke/And aprove the wode, Sir William Knyghtle. In mensis december [sic] anno domini 1576. Reade & then judge'; on front cover 'This Booke was given to me by Mr George Filding [?George Fylding, surgeon of Lubbenham, Leics. (fl.1603)] in November 1652, & to Mr Samuell Wallis by D. Burton in June 1658.'

Described in typescript supplements, by Christopher Hilton and Richard Aspin, to the Library's published finding aids.