The art of preserving health: A poem

Armstrong, John (1709-79). The art of preserving health: A poem. In four books. 8vo. [3]-128pp.; lacking half-title. London: A. Millar, 1745. 203 x 128 mm. Calf gilt ca. 1745, hinges cracking, light edgewear. Front flyleaf starting, light toning but very good. Presentation Copy, inscribed "From the Author" on the verso of the front endpaper. Engraved bookplate of Thomas Dowdeswell of Pull Court, Worcestershire (d. 1811).

Second edition, first published in 1744. Armstrong's didactic poem on preserving health was one of the most popular publications of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; it was among the first literary works to popularize Scottish medical ideas concerning emotional and anatomical sensibility among British readers. The poem "was praised by critics, cited approvingly by physicians, pirated widely by booksellers, quoted by diarists, and celebrated by generations of readers in Britain" (Budd, John Armstrong's "The Art of Preserving Health": Eighteenth-Century Sensibility in Practice [2016]). By 1795 the poem had gone through fourteen editions, including one printed by Benjamin Franklin.