The Method of Phisick, Containing the Causes, Signes, and Cures of Inward Diseases in Mans Body from the Head to the Foote

DOROTHY VILLIERS'S BOOK Whereunto is added, the forme and rule of making remedies and medicines, which our phisitians commonly use at this day, with the proportion, quantitie, & names of each medicine. The third Edition corrected and augmented, with two other bookes newly added by the Author. Woodcut title-page device, woodcut headpiece and initials. 4to in 8's. [195 x 157 x 37 mm]. [8]ff 484, [8] pp. Bound in contemporary limp vellum, sewn on four leather thongs, stab holes on boards for missing ties, faint manuscript lettering on spine. (Recased, soiled and cockled). STC B.1510. Title silked with substantial loss to the margin and a few letters, loss of some letters in the dedication leaf with restoration to the margins, the odd light waterstain which does not affect the text, otherwise internally clean. Early ink ownership signature of Dorothy Villiers on title and first page of the Dedication to Lord Burghley. Further ink inscription "Isaac Villiers his book" on p.1, a few annotations within the text and a Latin inscription on the final blank page. First published in 1583, with an eighth edition in 1639. John Barrough, or Barrow (d.1600) was licensed to practice surgery by the University of Cambridge in 1559. He describes himself in his will as a gentleman, originally of Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk. He was buried at Wicken, Cambridgeshire, leaving in excess of £360 plus 240s in cash to his children, grandchildren and the poor of Wicken parish. The Method of Phisicke "offers a straightforward example of the Elizabethan medical practica. The text follows the body, proceeding from the maladies of the head to those of the foot. Symptoms are described; prescriptions and the methods of procuring and applying these prescriptions are offered. Barrow himself describes the work as a "breviary or abridgement of physick", into which he "interlaced experiments of my own, which by long and use and practice I have observed to be true". It is the remedy, rather than with the cause, of disease that Barrow concerns himself. Defending the practicality of his approach, Barrow asserts that "my reason was, because if my books should come to the hands of the unlearned a little would suffice (the former being more necesarie") . It is to his "countriemen", the lay reader, that Barrow ostensibly writes. He saves, however, a few stern words for the student of medicine, venturing forth from "the compasse of their little studie" into a commonwealth in which "they shall meet disease that Galen never dreamt of". Barrow's is an empirical medicine, one in which practice - and practical knowledge - serve to extend the art of medicine. "Arte", argues Barrow, "is weake without practice"" - ODNB.…