A Treatise on Foreign and Native Herbal Remedies

[Jersey City, N.J.: Dr. O. Phelps Brown, no. 21 Grand St., Jersey City, 1871. Booklet (18.5 x 12.2 cm.), 48 pages. Illustrated. Cover illustration signed in the print "J. Karst". Running title: Treatise on Herbal Preparations. Date of publication from testimonials. Later edition; originally published in 1863. In the same year, Dr. O. Phelps Brown published a much larger work The Complete Herbalist. Both served as promotional literature for herbal preparations by Brown, remedies intended for household use, nominally based on "hygenic principles". Some of Brown's nostrums, including his "Celebrated Herbal Ointment" were manufactured and sold as late as 1917, when the Food & Drug Act caught up with the claims of cures and the stated ingredients. The court filings tell us "Analysis of a sample... showed that the product was a mixture of petrolatum and salicylic acid. It contains nothing volatile with steam... no plant extractives... [and] that certain statements appearing on its label falsely and fraudulently represented it as a remedy..." In 1869, Brown issued the present work in London under a new title, A Treatise on Epilepsy or Fits: a Treatise on Consumption. But for the new title, illustration and design of the wrappers, the work is identical to the present book. The wrapper now states Brown lives in Covent Garden, London, and is a "Professor of Medicine", though his books continued to be published in Jersey City for decades. Internally sound and very clean. The wrapper, with an attractive image of a "jungle" scene, is soiled but sound. Near very good. Very scarce. [OCLC locates three copies with various dates (1869-74)].