Sold for £35,000 at Forum Auctions (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) in its September 27 auction, it was the work of Hugh Napkyn, a ‘Chyrurgian and Maister in Anatomie’, or barber surgeon, of St Botolph without Aldgate in the City of London.
There is, however, no reference in any of the usual sources to a printed version of this carefully prepared and laid-out manuscript.
Napkyn draws on his own recipes and those of many colleagues for his compendium of remedies, some of them focusing on such serious and deadly threats as the plague (as seen in the page reproduced above) and smallpox.
One is Dr Burgis’ recipe for ‘Rue & Sage boiled in Malmsey’, said to be “good against the common Plague, but likewise the Small poxe, Meazells, Surphets, and divers other diseases”.
Plague precaution
Another precaution against plague, recommended by a Mr Snooke, included the following direction: “… take a living Pigeon, and skin him on the backe.”
There are also balms for troublesome but perhaps less dangerous conditions – for “cold Aches & shrinking of Sinews”, for example, or a “Powder for Warts”, along with assorted treatments for the fluxe, toothache and nose-bleeds.
The manuscript was in a contemporary vellum binding with a central ornament bearing the date 1631 on both covers, and bore annotations and additions made late in the century by a James Rowe.
