Graphical version

Wellcome Library

P X: medical receipts


IDENTITY STATEMENT

Reference code(s): GB 0120 MSS.3734-3735

Held at: Wellcome Library

Title: P X: medical receipts

Date(s): 1685-1725

Level of description: Collection

Extent: 2 volumes

Name of creator(s): P X

CONTEXT

Administrative/Biographical history:

Not given.

CONTENT

Scope and content/abstract:

Secreti medicinali. A collection of medical receipts: the first volume mainly in Italian, with a few entries in Latin; the second volume in Italian and Latin, with additions by other hands. Titles within a pen-drawn ornamental border. Vol. I is entitled 'Secreti medicinali'; Vol. II was apparently originally entitled 'Secreti di medicina', but some additions were written in, so that it now reads 'Experimentati/Secreti de Medicina/Raccolti/Per sanare molti mali e/conservare la Sanità'. A considerable part of this volume seems to be by the same hand as the first volume. Volume I is in four Books, and the compiler's initials are given in Receipt No. 77 of the first book: 'provato de me X.P.' and in the next entry: 'che io X.P. ho veduto l'efetti'. The date 1685 occurs on fol. 10 of Book II, and 1699 on fol. 28 of the last Book. Volume II is in two Books. The second has an engraved historiated title-page, with a blank space inscribed: 'Secreti di Medicina Anno' 1699. This book contains 533 numbered receipts. Facing No. 438 is a rough pen-drawing of a distilling apparatus: opposite No. 438 is an inserted printed broadside advertising 'Il vero Balsamo Aureo di Lorenno, chiamato Balsamo Divino' printed at Modena, but undated. This folio sheet has been cut down and folded. This remedy, and an 'Acqua Triacale' by the same Lorenno, are entered as Nos. 438 and 439 of the MS. The latest date in this volume is 1725, in the margin of Receipt No. 530.

ACCESS AND USE

Language/scripts of material: Latin and Italian

System of arrangement:

As set out above in Scope and Content.

Conditions governing access:

Open. The papers are available subject to the usual conditions of access to Archives and Manuscripts material, after the completion of a Reader's Undertaking.

Conditions governing reproduction:

Photocopies/photographs/microfilm are supplied for private research only at the Archivist's discretion. Please note that material may be unsuitable for copying on conservation grounds, and that photographs cannot be photocopied in any circumstances. Readers are restricted to 100 photocopies in twelve months. Researchers who wish to publish material must seek copyright permission from the copyright owner.

Physical characteristics:

2 vols. 4to. 20 × 15 cm., 22 × 16 cm. Original calf bindings, not uniform.

Finding aids:

Described in: S A J Moorat, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts on Medicine and Science in the Wellcome Historical Medical Library (London: Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 1962-1973).

Detailed catalogue

ARCHIVAL INFORMATION

Accruals:

Archival history:

Pasted inside the upper cover in both volumes is the library label of [Marchese] Cesare [de] Campori [1814-1880], the Italian historian.

Immediate source of acquisition:

Purchased 1928.

ALLIED MATERIALS

DESCRIPTION NOTES

Archivist's note: Entry compiled by Barbara Ball from the Wellcome Library online catalogue.

Rules or conventions: Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions: November 2008


INDEX ENTRIES
Subjects
Medicine, traditional | Culture
Recipes | Literary forms and genres | Literature

Personal names

Corporate names

Places