Partes duae de morbis puerorum auctore Jacobo Primerosio doctore medico. by PRIMEROSE, James (ca. 1592/8-1659/60) [also: PRIMROSE] - 1659

Roterodami:: ex officinâ Arnoldi Leers, 1659., 1659. Two parts in one. 15 cm. 12mo. [2], 125, [1] pp. [Complete]. Printer’s woodcut device on title; title margin trimmed. Original paste-paper over boards; simple repairs to spine with old manuscript title added, spine worn, some internal waterstaining to bottom edge. Shelf-mark on p. 1 (lower margin). Title margin trimmed. Good. First edition. Published in two parts, Primerose ?deals with the care of the newborn infant and the feeding of infants,? and the second part is devoted to the problem of infantile diseases and mortality, especially of rickets. ?Primerose was one of those who still regarded the ancient medical writers as the Law and the Prophets, and his book is little more than a compilation from them, mixed with more of ignorant custom and superstition than one can find in any single ancient writer, unless perhaps in Artius; though Primerose, it must be said, does sometimes acknowledge that a custom or opinion mentioned is superstitious. He quotes from Galen the salting of the newborn baby, which he says has now become obsolete. He advices amongst other methods of ablution washing the baby in its own urine; and as another alternative he mentions warm beer. The nurse’s milk is still to be tested by the nail test of Soranus, or by a hair, or mirror, or dish used in the same way as the nail, to estimate the quality of the milk by its viscidity.? [Still, p. 248]. / ?The son of Gilbert Primrose, he was born at St. Jean d?Angely, now in Charente-Inferieure, France. He studied at the University of Bordeaux, there graduated M.A., and then proceeded to Montpellier, where he took the degree of M.D. in 1617, and attended the lectures of John Varandaeus, professor of physic.? / ?He was incorporated M.D. at Oxford in March 1628. On 9 December 1629, at Dr. Argent’s house in London, he was examined for admission to the license of the College of Physicians, William Harvey, being one of his examiners (manuscript annals). He passed, and was admitted the following day. He settled in Kingston-upon-Hull, and there practised his profession. He died in December 1659 at Hull, where he was buried in Holy Trinity Church.? [Wikip.]. REFERENCES: Grulee 551; Hirsch IV, p. 627; Krivatsy, NLM, 9294; Waller 7642. See: Munk’s Coll. of Phys. i. 197; Joseph Foster, Alumni oxonienses: the members of the University of Oxford, 1500-1714, Oxford & London: Parker and Co., 1891-92; Jean Astruc, Memoires pour servir a l?Histoire de la Faculte de medecine de Montpellier, 1767 (edited by Anne-Charles Lorry); Geoffrey Davenport, Ian McDonald, Caroline Moss-Gibbons, The Royal College of Physicians and Its Collections: An Illustrated History, (2001), p. 142; DNB; George Frederic Still, The History of Paediatrics, 1931.