?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600
Manuscript on Paper, Equine Veterinary Formulary. East Earl, Pennsylvania, circa 1860 and later. 12mo, 62 ruled wove pages, bound in original wallet-style sheepskin binding, minor wear; free endpapers and perhaps other leaves torn out, 5 1/2 x 4 in.
The first fifty-three pages are devoted to a variety of equine veterinary cures, described in narrative form. Ailments include: "Hoof-evil, or Thrush, Grease-Heels"; "Groggy knees"; "Sprain of the stifle"; "Mange and surfeit." Also included are recipes for "white ointment"; "black liniment"; "iodine ointment"; "Johnson's liniment" and more. Our favorite is "How to make the drops to make old horses young, or Get up and Howl!" Among the ingredients are cantharides (Spanish fly), fenugreek and quite a lot of brandy. A section on "How to tame the wild horse" calls for removing warts from the horse's leg, drying and powdering them, blowing it into the horse's nose, followed by "oil of arodium" (rhodium?) similarly applied. He notes having "paid Perry Plancher $20 for this receipt; he is the Arabian horse tamer." In the rear is a 9-page daybook of services from April to July 1860. Most of the customers seem to be from in or near East Earl, PA, and each paid $6.00 to have their mares "inshured," presumably for stud services.
