LEWIS, William

[LEWIS, William]. The new Dispensatory: Containing I. The Theory and Practice of Pharmacy. II. A Distribution of Medicinal Simples,… III. A full Translation of the London and Edinburgh Pharmacopoeias;… IV. Directions for Extemporaneous Prescriptions;… V. A Collection of Cheap Remedies for the Use of the Poor. The whole interpreted With Practical Causations and Observations. Intended as a Correction, and Improvement of Quincy.

London, Printed for J. Nourse, 1753.

£750

FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. xii (title, preface and contents), 32 (introduction), 664 (text: dispensatory, appendix and index). Roman letter and some Italic. Tail pieces. Bound in contemporary calf, spine gilt, rebacked and with red morocco label, corners repaired. An excellent copy.

William Lewis (1708-1781) was a chemist and physician. The English dispensatories of the seventeenth and fellowing century were mainly commentaries based on the London and other pharmacopeias, which began to be expanded, more or less comprehensively, in order to work as reference books (Kremer-Urdang). John Quincy (d. 1722) started his carrier as an apothecary apprentice (cf. Ferguson II, 239). His ‘English Dispensatory’ (1721), of which a fourth edition appeared in 1722 and a twelfth in 1749, contains a complete account of the materia medica and of therapeutics, and many of the prescriptions contained in it were long popular. He studied mathematics and the philosophy of Sir Isaac Newton, and received the degree of M.D. from the university of Edinburgh. 

ESTC T93256