One of the many editions of one of the most authoritative pharmacopoeia of 18th-century Europe. The first edition was published in Paris in 1697, many editions followed (our copy: 4th ed.).
Nicolas Lémery (1645-1715) was a famous French chemist, pharmacist and physician of the King, who was among the first to fight alchemy and to lay the foundations of modern science in pharmacy. He is often regarded as a founding father of modern pharmacology. After learning pharmacy in his native town Rouen, he became a pupil of Christophe Glaser in Paris, and then went to Montpellier, where he began to lecture on chemistry. He next established a pharmacy in Paris, still continuing his lectures. Lémery did not concern himself much with theoretical speculations, but holding chemistry to be a demonstrative science, confined himself to the straightforward exposition of facts and experiments. In consequence, his lecture-room was thronged with people of all sorts, anxious to hear a man who shunned the barren obscurities of the alchemists.
With the bookplate of A. de Kluijs and his owner's stamp on the front paste-down and the first free endpaper and a handwritten poem on the three faces of physicians on the verso of the first free endpaper in a 18th-century hand. Head and bottom of the spine damaged, binding a little worn, corners bumped, otherwise in good condition. Encycl. Britt. 16 (11th. Ed.), p. 410; J.C. Powers, "Ars sine arte": Nicolas Lémery and the end of alchemie in 18th-century France, in: Ambix, 45 (3), pp. 163-189; Cowen & Helfand, Pharmacy, p. 112.