Instrucções e cautelas practicas sobre a natureza, differentes especies, virtudes em geral, e uso legitimo das aguas mineraes, principalmente de Caldas; com a noticia daquellas, que são conhecidas em cada huma das Provincias do Reino de Portugal, e o methodo de preparar as aguas artificiaes.

Coimbra, Na Real Imprensa da Universidade, 1810.. FIRST and ONLY EDITION. 2 volumes in 1. 8°, contemporary sheep (very slight wear to extremities, small round paper tag tipped on to lowest compartment of spine), smooth spine minimally gilt without lettering, text block edges rouged (for volume I) and tinted yellow (for volume II). In very good to fine condition. xxiv, 350 pp., (1 l. errata), 2 folding engraved plates, 1 large folding table of chemical substances; viii, 174 pp., (1 l. errata). *** FIRST and ONLY EDITION of what can be called the first attempt at a hydrological survey of Portugal. Over a half-century later, it was still the only such work of any significance, according to Rodrigues de Gusmão (as quoted by Innocêncio). The greater part of the first volume consists of an inventory of all known sources for mineral water within continental Portugal, as well as the Island of São Miguel in the Azores. Each source is carefully classified and located geographically. The book begins with a general consideration of the medicinal properties of water. It then discusses the properties of different waters, such as those which contain gas, are naturally warm, saline, or contain sulfur. Toward the end of the first volume is further discussion of waters with differing properties, how to examine and analyze them, more on the healthful qualities of water, and how to choose the most effective. There is a section of purification.Tavares concludes that by far the best waters were those of Caldas da Rainha, which were already famous, with a number of books written about them in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The second volume is devoted entirely to the medicinal properties of the thermal waters of Caldas, what time of year to go there, diverse methods of application, and special dietary measures to be followed when at the spa.The two folding engraved plates show equipment used at the baths.The author, born in Coimbra after 1750, died in Lisbon, 1812. He was a physician on the Medical Faculty of the Universidade de Coimbra, primeiro medico da Real Camara, physico-mór do Reino, and a member of the Academia Real das Sciencias de Lisboa and the Academia de Medicina de Barcelona. He wrote a number of pharmacological works.*** Innocêncio III, 72 (without mention of the errata leaves, plates, or the folding table). Lisbon, Faculdade de Medicina, Catálogo da colecção portuguesa I, 291. Not in Pires de Lima, Catálogo da Bibliotheca da Escola Medico-Cirurgica do Porto. See Ferreira de Mira, História da medicina portuguesa, p. 333, for a partly accurate account of the significance and content of the present work. Porbase locates only two copies, both at Biblioteca João Paulo II-Universidade Católica Portuguesa. Jisc repeats Wellcome Library and adds British Library.