Opera Omnia Medica by Freind, Joannis., M.D. (1675-1728) - 1735

Paris: Guillelmum Cavelier, 1735. Second Edition . Very Good/No Jacket as Issued. 4to - over 9¾" - 12" tall. Pagination: lvi, 232, 388, (4); bound in full mottled calf (re-backed preserving the original spine), spine has six compartments with five raised bands and red leather label; marbled end pages; old water stain in lower fore corner in the margin (not affecting text), most visible up to page 18 of the first work and the last hundred pages of the last work. Text in Latin. End pages contain several penned and penciled notations from previous owners and booksellers including an inscription "W.A. Greenhill / Sept. 16, 1839 / from Rev. Edw. Marshall". This is a reprint of the first collected Latin edition published in London in 1733. Freind is best known for his History of Physick from the Time of Galen to the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century (Historiae Medicinae), which comprises the last section of Opera Omnia Medica. Also included in this collection are Freind's Chemistry Lectures at Oxford University in which he sought to apply Newtonian physics to chemistry, Emmenologia (on gynecological matters), writings on fevers, his translation of the writings of Hippocrates into Latin, and his correspondence with Dr. Richard Mead on various medical matters. According to Garrison and Morton, "Freind was the first English historian of medicine. His work The History of Physick (originally published in 1725) is the best English work on the period of which it treats. Freind dabbled in politics and planned the above work (History of Physick) while committed to the Tower of London on a charge of high treason, a charge of which he was innocent. Legend has it that Sir Robert Walpole, Prime minister at the time, suffered much from renal calculi and called in Mead, a great friend of Freind. Mead refused to treat Walpole until Freind was released, and this was speedily arranged!