[Leechbook, no. 1]

Manuscript codex A collection of texts, including lists of herbs and medicinal recipes, treatises on pestilence, urine, alchemy, a poem on bloodletting, and 3 poems by John Lydgate (fol. 64r-67r), some of them fragmentary Text in English and Latin Title supplied by cataloguer; varying forms of title from Schullian and De Ricci, the latter taken from fol. 14r: Hic incipit nova[m] herba[rum] Anglicana Contents: fol. 1r: alphabetical list of herbs, A-Z; fol. 13v] " Explicit herbale"; [fol. 14r: rubric] Hic incipit nova[m] herba[rum] Anglicana; [fol. 16r: text of poem] Ze maistres th[a]t use blode lating ...; [fol. 17r: text] Here bygyneth a nobill tretis made of a good fisician John of Burdews of medecyne again[st] the pestelence; [fol. 18v-46v: misc. recipes, incomplete]; [47r: text] Off urynys ther byn x qualiteis ...; [fol. 57v: text] Here begynyth a tretys ffor menys or weme[n]is uryne ... ; [fol. 60v-62v: misc. recipes]; [fol. 63r: bloodletting and regimen, Jan.-Nov.]; [fol. 64r: text] ffor helth of body keure for colds in hede ...; [fol. 65r: text] My dere some first thy self enhable ...; [fol. 66v: text] Who woll bene holl and kep hym fro seknesse ...; [67r: prayers]; [67v-75v: misc. recipes]; [fol. 76r-81v: mainly religious rituals to protect and cure various diseases]; [fol. 82r-88v: misc. recipes]; [fol. 89r-82v: Constantine the African. De urinis]; [fol. 95r-111v: misc. recipes and pharmacological notes; 110r blank]; [fol. 112r-114v: on the elements and planets]; [fol. 115r: rubr.] Hier beginet the bouke of alkamy Fol. 1r has portions missing and head and foot, possibly with loss of title or rubric at head Illustrations of urine flasks on fol. 47r Complete contents given in Claudius Mayer, "A medieval English leechbook and its 14th century poem on bloodletting." Includes poems by John Lydgate, printed in The minor poems of John Lydgate, ed. Henry Noble MacCracken, nos. 47, 48, and 55 : [The dietary] (fol. 64r-66v), Stans puer ad mensam (fol. 65v-66v), and [A doctrine for pestilence] (fol. 66v-67v) Collation: Paper; iii (modern paper; i is pastedown) + 117 + iii (modern paper; iii is pastedown). Traces of numbering (lii and liii) on fol. 48 and 49 Several leaves are missing portions, with some loss of some; final 3 leaves have losses where ink has eaten through; a few treatises appear to be incomplete Layout: Written in 30 long lines; some pages frame-ruled in pen or drypoint Script: Written in English script, in several hands Decoration: 3-line flourished initial in red (fol. 1r); 2-line initials, paragraph marks, initial strokes, line fillers, etc., in red (fol. 1v-60r, 76r-84v, 86r-87v). Small heads drawn in lower margins, fol. 49r-56v Binding: Bound in red morocco by James MacDonald Co., New York City; binder's named stamped on inside lower board. Manuscript has been disbound, each leaf mounted in a paper frame, and silked. Gold stamping on cover: Manuscript Collection of Medical Tracts and Receipts Latin and English. 15th century Written in England in the 15th(?) c. Schullian and De Ricci give 15th c.date; Mayer dates it to early 14th-early 15th c., with fol. 76-81 about 1320 Thomas Windsor; Bethesda, MD. National Library of Medicine, Manuscript E 4 Schullian, D.M. NLM incun. De Ricci Claudius F. Mayer, "A medieval English leechbook and its 14th century poem on bloodletting" in Bull. Hist. Med. 7 (1939) 381-391 Microfilm Item catalogued from existing description: De Ricci and Schullian; and in hand by National Library of Medicine, History of Medicine Division, 05/2007 Condition reviewed digitized