PHARMACOPOEIA OFFICINALIS & EXTEMPORANEA

1718. QUINCY, John. PHARMACOPOEIA OFFICINALIS & EXTEMPORANEA; or, a Compleat English Dispensatory, in Four Parts. Containing: I. The Theory of Pharmacy, and the several Processes therein. II. A Description of the Officinal Simples, with their Virtues and Preparations, Galenical and Chymical. III. The Officinal Compositions... IV. Extemporaneous Prescriptions... London: A. Bell, 1718. First edition. xvi, 618, [54 ] pp. Octavo, nineteenth-century half leather, somewhat rubbed and worn. Quincy's name crossed out in ink on title and dedication; half-inch tear to edge of first four leaves; spotting and soil passim. This popular and encyclopedic English Dispensatory ran to twelve editions by 1749. Quincy was a London apothecary, trained in Edinburgh, who had little respect for other pharmaceutical writers. From the Preface to this work: "Although dispensatory writers and publishers of recipes have been at all times very numerous... the least able have fallen upon this task... That most persons are fond of works of this kind is manifest from their esteem even of the worst, and the universal reception of Salmon's, which are as bad as they are voluminous," Quite scarce. (Wellcome IV, 457).