Home / Browse / Sciences / A Brief Treatise Of the nature, causes, signes, preservation from, and cure of the Pestilence.
KEMP, William.
A Brief Treatise Of the nature, causes, signes, preservation from, and cure of the Pestilence.
Collected by W. Kemp, Mr. of Arts.
Publisher: London: printed for, and are to be sold by D. Kemp, at his shop, 1665
Stock code: 60341
Price: £3,750 Currency Conversion
First edition. Kemp was a Holborn medical practitioner writing just as the devastating outbreak of bubonic plague reached the city of London: his postscript is dated 22 July 1665, three weeks after the king and his court had fled the stricken city. Though not a member of the college, Kemp was a supporter of the College of Physicians and their recommendations. (The publisher was perhaps his brother; neither Kemp produced another work.) His book gives symptoms of the plague, various theories as to its aetiology, suggested prophylactics (including an enthusiastic recommendation of tobacco smoking), and recipes for suitable medicines. At the end he notes that these medicines can be home-made, or bought ready-made "at Mr. John Dunsons at the Sign of the Pestle and Mortar in Coleman-street, or at Mr. Hamnet Rigbies at the Seven Stars in Fetter-Lane." His final address "to the readers" disavows any notion of profiting from the sale of such medicines himself, and emphasizes that his intended readership is the poorer sort who cannot afford expensive remedies.
Small quarto (178 × 129 mm), pp. [6], 47, 50-94, [2]; irregular pagination but collates complete. Recent sprinkled sheep to style, double blind rules, unlettered. British Museum sale duplicate 1787 stamp on title verso blank. Small contemporary ink inscription at upper outer corner of title, one or two minor blemishes, an excellent copy.
