Dr. Sylvester Rattray, author of the treatise on sympathy and antipathy, Glasgow, 1658 / by James Finlayson.

  • Finlayson, James, 1840-1906.
Date:
[1900]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Dr. Sylvester Rattray, author of the treatise on sympathy and antipathy, Glasgow, 1658 / by James Finlayson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Aditus Novus / Ad occultas / Sympathise / Et / Antipathiae / Causas inve- niendas: / Per / Principia Philosophise na-/turalis, ex Formentorum / arti- ficiosa Anatomia hausta, / Patefactus. / A Sylvestro Rattray, / Med. Doct. Glasguensi Scoto. / Natura est arcanorum suorum interpres fidis- / sima, nam quae in uno aliquo genere obscu- / rius exhibet, ea luculentius in alio explicat. / Glasguse, / Excudebat Andreas Anderson, / Anno Dom. 1658. [12 pp. not numbered, pp. 135]. The dedication of the book is to a celebrated patron of letters in his time. It reads: Clarissimo, / Amplissimo, / ac / Consultissimo Viro, / D. D. Ioanni Scoto, / Scototarvatio, / Nobili Musarum Maecenati, / amico suo submisse colendo, Sylvester Rattray, M. D. / S. P. D. The date of the Dedication is Feby. 10. 1658. This treatise was soon reprinted on the continent, appearing in Tubingen in 1660; and, as already stated, it occupies the first place in the new edition of the collection on this subject, appearing in Nuremberg in 1662: “Theatrum Sympatheticum auctum, exhibens variores authores de Pul- “vere Sympathetico, quidem Digbseum, Straussium, Papinum et Mohyuin “de unguento verb armario.. . . Praemittitur his Sylvestri Rattray, Aditus “ad Sympathiam et Antipathiam. Norimbergse, 1662.” 4to. The explanation of the precedence thus given to Rattray’s little work was, evidently, because of its aiming at a philosophical expo- sition of the whole subject of “Sympathia” and “ Antipathia” rather than at furnishing a therapeutical application of his doctrine; this he reserved for another occasion which never came. He begins by putting his facts in tabulated form; thus we have lists headed “Vegetabilium Antipathia”; “Animalium Antipathia”; “Mineralium Antipathia”; “Vegetabilium Sympathia” &c. he then goes on to expound an obscure Metaphysical theory which would have little interest for present-day readers even if it could be stated briefly. *) The personality of Sylvester Rattray is rather shadowy, but perhaps l) Some of his so-called facts are given by Dr. A. Duncan in his Memorials of the Glasgow Faculty, Glasgow, 1896, p. 201. The pages in the Glasgow edition are those quoted. These extracts may serve to keep the reader from desiring more ! If such are the “facts” Rattray founded on, the stability of his metaphysical edifice built thereon, may be imagined. “The smoking (fumigatio) of the lung of an ass in a house kills worms, serpents and all poisonous things”, p. 19. “Clothes which have been at a funeral are never attacked by moths”, p. 20. “If we often make use of the shorter lived fruits aud the animals which feed upon them, they shorten life”, p. 16. “Should the feathers of the tail of a peacockc ome into contact with a haemorrhage from accident or blow, it cannot be stopped unless these are removed”, p. 12.