MEDICAL BOTANY - Woodville, 1st 1790 - HERBAL, MATERIA MEDICA, MEDICINAL PLANTS

MEDICAL BOTANY, CONTAINING SYSTEMATIC AND GENERAL DESCRIPTIONS, WITH PLATES, OF ALL THE MEDICINAL PLANTS, INDIGENOUS AND EXOTIC, COMPREHENDED IN THE CATALOGUES OF THE MATERIA MEDICA, AS PUBLISHED BY THE ROYAL COLLEGES OF PHYSICIANS OF LONDON AND EDINBURGH: ACCOMPANIED WITH A CIRCUMSTANTIAL DETAIL OF THEIR MEDICINAL EFFECTS, AND OF THE DISEASES IN WHICH THEY HAVE BEEN MOST SUCCESSFULLY EMPLOYED.

Book Details + Condition: Royal Colleges of Physicians of London and Edinburgh. Printed and sold for the author, by James Phillips (London). First Editions, 1790-1793. Complete 3-volume hardcover set, with full-leather binding. Each book measures 9.25" x 7.5"; with marbled endpapers and text block; raised bands with gilt to spine. Pagination: 182pp; 185pp; 209pp. Profusely and beautifully illustrated with 274 hand-colored engravings of medicinal plants by James Sowerby. William Woodville (1752–1805) was an English physician and botanist, who was among the first to promote vaccination. This Magnum Opus work was an important reference work for physicians in the 18th-19th centuries, identifying and explaining the healing qualities of featured medicinal plants. Woodville's work remained the standard illustrated book of herbal pharmacopoeia until the publication of Bentley and Trimen's Medicinal Plants, published in the latter half of the 19th century. Sowerby's 274 hand-colored medicinal engravings are some of the finest of the 18th century.

For all volumes: firm binding; wear (rubbing, some scraping) to full-leather boards; chafed spine ends; foxing present to front & rear endpapers; name to ffep; interiors are clean and free of markings. Colored plates remain bright and clean. The front boards of Vols 2 and 3 have been professionally re-attached at some point (and remain solid).