Nov 17, 2016 - Sale 2432

Sale 2432 - Lot 355

Price Realized: $ 2,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500
(MEXICO.) Ocampo, José Manuel de. Manuscript compilation of medical wisdom. [9], 319, [22] manuscript pages in several colors. 4to, stitched; moderate wear to first leaf and final 4 index leaves with slight loss of text, minor dampstaining; signed by the author on page 34 and initialed on page 49. Np, circa 1800 through 1838
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An extensive and appealing compilation of medical knowledge from the era of late colonial Mexico. Not much has been found about the author, José Manuel de Ocampo, but he was apparently a Mexican physician with an interest in other scientific fields--this volume makes detours into botany and geology. The first main section begins with two decorative title pages in five colors reading "Explicacion de los caracteres de pesos y medida de la pharmacia" and "Formulario medico y chirurgico cadisense," pages 1-48. It describes the preparations and doses of various medicines, attractively set down with initials in red. Inserted in this section is a well-worn printed table of dosages titled "Indice de las dosis de los medicamentos mas principales."
A second section begins on page 49 with another decorative title page in five colors, "Varias receptas particulares por autores clasicos, experimentadas con feliz sucesa." It is written in the same hand as the preceding section, and is signed simply "J.M. de O." Many of these medical formulas are cited from late eighteenth-century sources such as Buchan's 1769 Family Medicine, with the latest being 1790 on page 89.
Pages 132-145 are devoted to botany, with two printed botanical plates inserted into this section, followed by an incomplete drawing of a whale. Pages 146-209 are devoted to a glossary of modern versus ancient scientific names. More medical recipes follow from 210 to 220, followed by notes on fossils, minerals, and geology through page 248. More medical recipes appear on pages 250-319, in a variety of hands; on page 271 is one taken from an 1806 issue of Diario de Mexico, with several other entries in this section dated from 1825 through 1838. A manuscript index appears at the rear of the volume.