pdf - Roger Gaskell Rare Books

First edition in English. The Thomason copy is annotated 26 June.
Another edition was published in 1674. Wing S2506; ESTC R203736;
Duveen p. 544; Neville II. p. 455; Pritchard 432.1.
The three parts of this work, taken respectively from Sendivogius, Paracelsus
and Gerhard Dorn, are all compiled and translated by ‘J.F. M.D.’ who is
generally identiWed as John French (1616–1657), author of The art of distillation
(London, 1651).
The Wrst part is taken from one of the later editions of Sendivogius Novum
lumen chymicum (Wrst edition 1604) with the appended treatise on sulphur, for
example the Geneva edition of 1639, a copy of which was in Newton’s library.
The second part is a translation of part of Paracelsus’ Metamorphosis. The third
part is based on Gerhard Dorn, Dictionarium Theophrasti Paracelsi.
Newton owned copies of the Latin edition of Sendivogius of 1639 and this
edition of the translation, both books showing characteristic dog­earing. It
was in the 1670s that Newton began his intensive study of alchemy.
The separate titlepage to the dictionary is missing in this copy. It was
printed on a single leaf so would have required extra care from the binder to
secure it properly – if it was ever present.
For Newton’s study of Sendivogius, see John Harrison, The Library of Isaac Newton
(1978), nos 1192 and 1485; Richard Westfall, Never at Rest (1980), p. 292; and
Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs, The Foundations of Newton’s Alchemy (1975), p. 152V.
171
SERTÜRNER, Friedrich Wilhelm (1783–1841)
Kurze Darstellung einiger chemischen und physikalischen Erfahrungen
über Elementar­Attraction, mindermächtige Säuren und
Alkalien, Weinsäuren, Opium, Imponderabilien, und einige andere
Gegenstände, mit Bemerkungen über den EinXuss des Lichts auf unser
Erdsystem.
Göttingen: bei Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1820.
8vo, pp. 98 [2], errata on last leaf, verso blank.
166 x 98mm. Light foxing.
Binding: Modern half green calf over marbled boards, original plain
blue wrappers bound in.
First edition.
Sertürner was the Wrst to isolate morphine from opium in a paper of 1805
(Garrison–Morton 1839). In the years following he investigated the eVects of
morphine, which became widely used after 1815. The isolation of morphine,
an alkaloid, was the Wrst isolation of an active ingredient from a plant.