The most public power struggle was between the apothecaries and the College of Physicians which was, in 1618, given the power to regulate the drugs dispensed by the apothecaries. The apothecaries themselves were not allowed to prescribe medicines. The newly independent Society of Apothecaries (formerly apothecaries had been members of the Grocers’ Company) found themselves fighting on two fronts: on one, against the physicians, to defend their traditional role as minor practitioners dispensing their own medicines; on the other against the druggists and chemists who were encroaching on their monopoly on dispensing. Absurdly, the College sought to exercise its power over drug preparation by publishing its official Pharmacopoeia in Latin, a language which many apothecaries could not read. The publication by Peter Cole of Culpeper’s English translation in 1649, in the first year of the Commonwealth, thus made dispensing a lot safer. At the same time, it struck a decisive blow for medical freedom (nos 19, 20, 24 and 25).

Medical books in English were published to establish reputations, to advertise services and medicines; and above all for the profit of the booksellers. During the Civil War period, they also provided an opportunity for sniping at the Royalist camp as defenders of the restrictive practices of the professions at the expense of the common people.

Only the rich could afford the services of a licensed physician, so that the great clinicians like Mayerne, Sydenham, Willis, were of minor importance to the health of the nation. William Harvey was famous for the pomp and ceremony with which he made his rounds horseback with a foot-cloth, his servant following behind. Although only university educated physicians, which meant they knew Latin, could be licensed by the College of Physicians to practice in the capital, in reality, for want of enough learned physicians, many doctors who only knew their mother-tongue were authorised to practise, forming an important sector of the market for English medical books (no. 89).

In order to sell their politics and their wares, English medical publishers addressed these doctors, as well as surgeons, apothecaries and midwives who had served apprenticeships but were not university trained; empirics who it was suggested might want to gain a solid foundation for what they only knew by experience; and women of all classes, responsible for the health of their own households, and, in grander houses, the sick poor of the neighbourhood. It was these practitioners and private individuals, above all women, who provided everyday healthcare to the great majority of the population. Women’s roles are recognised in such titles as ‘The Charitable Physitian’ (no. 53) and ‘The Family Physician’ (no. 57) and in books which combine medical receipts with culinary recipes (no. 74). Pechey omitted from his herbal plants ‘that every Woman knows, or keeps in her Garden’ (no. 89), and as late as 1790 Pultney could write that Culpeper’s ‘Herbal’, first published in 1652, ‘continued for more than a century, to be the manual of good ladies in the country’. Like popular medical texts today, these books were read by women to form a preliminary diagnosis, to decide if the services of a professional were called for, and in order to follow the directions of the physician for themselves and their families. The publisher Peter Cole claimed that publishing in English did not hurt the Latinate physician’s interests; on the contrary by aiding the cure in this way the physician’s reputation was enhanced (Riviere, Practice of Physick, 1655, A1r).

Unlike more high-brow literature (no. 82), which could be printed anywhere and sold everywhere, these books more often than not contain advertisements for medicines and the services of practitioners: they were highly localised in time and place. Many contain priced lists of drugs to help the public avoid being overcharged and simples could be purchased 'at the Herborists or hearbe women in Cheap-side' (no. 53). Typically an author would sell his own remedies at his house, and he would print his address in a preface or advertisement. In one case medicines were advertised as being for sale from a bookseller, Thomas Passinger at the sign of the Three Bibles on London Bridge (no. 109). Booksellers and printers were mostly concentrated in the area around St Paul’s Cathedral and the College of Physicians at Amen Corner was just a few minutes walk from the West door.

Dates of entry in the Stationers’ Register and licences to print indicate when manuscripts were ready for the press, and dated prefaces when the text had been printed off, shortly before publication. For the period from 1668 to 1709, most licensed publications were advertised in the monthly Term Catalogues in the term in which they were published: Michaelmas from October to December; Hilary from January to March; Easter, April and May; and Trinity, June and July. Although many were not, all books were supposed to be licensed and this was also a pre-requisite for entry in the Stationers’ Register, providing some copyright protection (from 1643 to 1655 medical books were licensed by the College of Physicians).

The Term Catalogues often give the price at which books were sold ready bound in the bookshops. Berlu’s Treasury of drugs unlock’d is an early example of a book with the price printed on the titlepage, ‘1s bound’ (no. 3 and note to no. 8). In the Civil War period, the bookseller George Thomason recorded the dates he acquired his books from the printers giving us a good idea of when certain books were actually available in the bookshops. From these sources we can build up a picture of the changing economics and geography of medical practice and medical bookselling in London (see the geographical index of printers and booksellers at the end of the catalogue).

After Fourcroy, Smeaton's most intensive study was on the work of Louis Bernard Guyton de Morveau, leading him into the history of the Dijon Academy and Guyton's role in disseminating Lavoisier's ideas. He analysed Guyton's published writings in 'L.B. Guyton de Morveau (1737–1816): A Bibliographical Study', Ambix, 6 (1957) 18–34 (Smeaton 1957). Another bibliographical study was undertaken with the collector Roy G. Neville, 'Macquer's Dictionnaire de Chymie: A bibliographical Study', Annales of Science, 33 (1981) 613–662 (Neville and Smeaton). Other articles on the characters whose books Smeaton collected, I have cited in full in the entries.

The books offered here are the result of three-quarters of a century of collecting. The earliest dated signature in one of Douglas McKie's books records his purchase of Sprat's History of the Royal Society of London (fourth edition, 1734) in 1927, and Duncan McKie continued to add to the collection throughout his life. The younger McKie was a working scientist and teacher. His discovery of the mineral yoderite gained him his Ph.D and a research fellowship at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he remained for the rest of his career. Crystallography was central to McKie's research and teaching, consolidated in the standard textbook, McKie and McKie, Crystalline Solids, written with his wife Christine.

Chemistry is the basis of mineralogy and one of the two major currents of geological theory. Douglas McKie's collection therefore formed the perfect foundation for the works of mineralogy, crystallography, and geology collected by Duncan McKie. He obtained many major works, for example those by Haüy, Playfair and Romé de Lisle, together with mineralogical textbooks, regional surveys and travel journals.