Medicine. Manuscript pharmacopeia, c.1810, 18 laid-paper leaves (200 x 165 mm, P T Tregent...
Medicine. Manuscript pharmacopeia, c.1810, 18 laid-paper leaves (200 x 165 mm, P T Tregent watermarks, dated 1810), stitched only, written in brown ink on rectos and versos (one leaf blank), first leaf a touch nicked and soiled, and with two later 19th-century trade cards for druggist W. Bowman of Bury secured to either side by two metal pins and each containing further recipes (qty: 1) Compiled according to family repute by Jonathan Spencer (1785-c.1855), dentist, pharmacist and physician of Salford, and great-great-great-uncle of the vendor. Contains some 130 recipes for cataplasms, tinctures, elixirs, and syrups, listed under Latinised names and occasionally with instructions for manufacture provided. The variety of ingredients, ranging from nicotine to opium and rhubarb to cinnamon, is a noteworthy reflection of the availability in the domestic market of the products of Britain's burgeoning empire and global trade.