Panacea; or The universal medicine, being a discovery of the wonderfull vertues of tobacco taken in a pipe, with its operation and use both in physick and chyrurgery. By Dr Everard, &c.
London: printed for Simon Miller at the Star in St Pauls Church-yard, near the West-end, 1659.
Collation:
8vo: A–E8 F–G4 H–L8, 80 leaves, pp.
[16] 79 [1] 55 [9]. Publisher’s advertisements on the last 9 pages.
Woodcut headpieces and initials.
Plates:
Engraved frontispiece portrait of the author smoking a pipe.
Condition:
140 x 85mm. Frontispiece trimmed but with no significant loss and
strengthened with tissue at the edges; title soiled and with a hole in a
blank portion repaired on the verso, fore edge of A2 repaired, clean tear
in F3, some general minor staining and soiling.
Binding:
Contemporary blind ruled sheep. Rebacked, new endleaves.
Provenance:
Edwin Clarke (1919–1996).
References:
Wing E3530; ESTC R1871;
Wellcome II, p. 537; Krivatsy 3748; Arents 271; Sabin 23216.
Price:
£1,600
First edition in English. Includes translations of Everard, De herba panacea (1587, 1644), part of Neander, Tobacologia (1622), and some passages from L’Ecluse’s edition of Monardes. Thomason copy annotated June.
¶ The long dedicatory epistle (pp. [3–16]) is addressed to Sir James Drax, Alderman Maniford and 15 other men, including 6 captains, ‘and to all worthy Merchants and Planters of Tobacco, for and in the West-Indies, and America’. Jerome E. Brooks writing in the Arents catalogue presumes that the named individuals were participants in the toboacco trade and subsidised this publication.The dedication is signed ‘J. R.’, presumably the translator, who emphasises the commercial value of tobacco, wondering how so many millions who now depend on the trade survived before.
