Das buch zu distillieren die zusamen gethonen ding Composita genant durch die einzige(n) ding und das buch Thesaurus pauperu(m) für die armen durch experiment ... zu trost un(d) heil de(r) menschen un(d) nutzlich ir leben und leib daruß zu erlengeren und in gesuntheit zu behalten

Strassburg: Johann Grüninger, 1519. 2nd Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. 2nd Edition. Hardcover. Folio - over 12 - 15" tall. 28 August 1519. Folio (305 x 200 mm). 330 leaves, Roman numbering. Black letter in two columns, title with full-page woodcut, 145 woodcut text illustration, of which one double-page, woodcut initials. Signatures: A-Z6; Aa-Zz6; a-i6. Bound in contemporary blind-tooled pigskin over beveled wooden boards, spine with 3 raised bands, brown-dyed edges, later endpapers (old repair of spine ends and joints with vellum, brass clasps and fittings gone, wooden boards wormed and worn). Lower edge in parts uncut. Internally somewhat browned, minor occasional spotting, scattered small, mostly marginal, lampoil- and waterstains (brown staining from lampoil more pronounced towards top corner of final leaves), finger- and dust-soiling, stronger to final leaves, a few occasional short tears, paper flaws, and ink smudges, first 6 leaves including title with paper restoration at fore-margin (most extensive on title-leaf affecting just a small area on the right side of the woodcut, this expertly redrawn in pen), the oversized double-page woodcut slightly shaved at both sides as often, 9 leaves with torn upper corner costing 2 letters of the Roman page number on 2 leaves (F6 and E1), paper repair at lower corner of 3 leaves outside printed area. Errors in page numberings corrected in ink. Occasional ink annotations and pen trials in contemporary hand. Provenance: Steffanus Bintz (inscribed and dated 1603 on final leaf verso, further inscribed and dated on f. XCVI); from a Southern German Apothecary Family collection. Although frequently consulted in early times, still a very good and interesting copy in original (first) binding. ----

RARE SECOND EDITION of this so-called "Grosses Destillierbuch" or "The True Art of Distilling," which is especially remarkable for its richness of illustrations. It was first published 1512 in Strassburg by Grüninger. "A gigantic work far more than a mere book on distillation, a manual rather of pharmacological therapeutics" (Sigerist). Brunschwig's work was "a pharmaceutical-technical handbook that was the authority far into the sixteenth century" (DSB).
The fine woodcuts show distilling equipment, furnaces and beakers, blood-letting scenes, visit to a sick-bed, steam baths, apothecary's shops, physicians, etc. There are several interesting anatomical illustrations, two of the eye, a viscera-man (a man with the thorax opened, showing the heart), large cut of a phrenologic head, etc. Some were taken from Reisch's Margarita philosophica of 1504, partly from the group around or even from Baldung Grien himself. This issue contains the same illustrations as the first edition of 1512, but with some new woodcuts and also expanded in the text. It forms a completely different work as the so-called "small distilling book" first published in 1500. It is devided into five parts, general art of distillation, composita in the order of the diseases of individual organs, surgical dispensary and pharmacopoeia for the poor (Thesaurus pauperum).
Hieronymus Brunschwig (c. 1450-1512) was an apothecary who also practiced surgery in Strasbourg. He conceives of distillation as a technique for purifying substances, enabling the pure, therapeutically effective part to be extracted from the impure, toxic part. He advocated the replacement of traditional galenic forms of materia medica with a distilled form.
Literature and references: VD 16, B 8699; IA 125.934; Schmidt, Grüninger 167; Benzing, Brunschwig 32; Muller 37; Sigerist, Hieronymus Brunschwig and his work, 1923, pp. I-XVI; DSB II, p.546. - Visit our website to see more images!