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8vo. (225 x 136 mm) xv, [1], 414 pp. Uncut, errata slip tipped in; occasional foxing, ownership pen marks on title-page. Bound in original paper boards, paper spine, printed paper spine title label; spine and corners restored. Very good. Scarce. Second edition (1st edition was 1827), which includes two added lectures not in the first edition. The first series of six lectures address the topics of natural history, vegetable physiology, zoology, animal and vegetable poisons, and human faculties, mental and corporeal. Following the chapter on zoology are five pages of animal classification tables. The final two lectures deal with mammiferous animals (six orders, from primates to whales). On page 86, there is an underlined portion of the text, referring to Stephen Hales' discoveries relating to temperature and the rising of sap in plants. Among the plants Lempriere discusses in his list of poisonous plants are deadly nightshade, hemlock, henbane, tobacco, foxglove, wolfsbane, mushrooms and the opium poppy. He also goes into a lengthy discussion of venomous snakes, particularly the American rattlesnake. There is a six-page table of poisons listed at the end of the related lectures. William Lempriere ". . . entered the army medical service when young, and by 1789 was attached to the garrison of Gibraltar. In the September of that year Sidi Mahommed, emperor of Morocco, sent a message to General O'Hara, the commandant at Gibraltar, asking that an English doctor might be sent to attend his son, Muley Absolom, who was suffering from cataract. Lempriere accepted the commission, and left Gibraltar on 14 Sept. 1789; on 28 Oct. he reached Tarudant, where he attended the prince with great success. His only rewards, however, were 'a gold watch, an indifferent horse, and a few hard dollars.' He was then summoned to Morocco itself, which he reached on 4 Dec., to attend some ladies of the sultan's harem. He was detained at Morocco a long time against his will, and was not allowed to leave till 12 Feb. 1790; here again he complains of the miserable remuneration awarded him. After his return from Morocco Lempriere published an account of his travels in A Tour from Gibraltar to Tangier, Sallee, Mogadore, Santa Cruz, Tarudant, and thence over Mount Atlas to Morocco, London, 1791. . . . Lempriere left the army with the rank of inspector-general of hospitals, and resided for many years in the Isle of Wight. . . ." During his stay there he published two medical works: A Report on the Medicinal Effects of an Aluminious Chalybeate Water lately discovered at Sandrocks, in the Isle of Wight, London, 1812 and Popular Lectures on the Study of Natural History and the Sciences, as delivered before The Isle of Wight Philosophical Society, London, 1830. [DNB]. BM Readex, Vol. 15, p. 22; DNB, Vol. XI, p. 913. Not in Osler, Waller or Wellcome. Seller Inventory # S13981
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