Pharmacy Explained – A Splendid Set
SANGIORGIO, Paolo.
La farmacia descritta secondo i moderni principi di Lavoisier ec. …
Milan, Stamperia e fonderia del genio [–G.G. Destefanis (vols III & IV); – dalla reale stamperia (vol. V)], 1804 [– 1806].
Five vols, 8vo, pp. I: [viii], xxi, [1 (blank)], [1 (errata)], [1 (blank)], 335, II: [viii], xvi, 376, III: xix, [1 (blank)], 409, [1 (errata)], [3 (‘nota dei nuovi associati’)], [1 (blank)], IV: 371, [1 (errata)], [2 (nota)], V: 426, [2 (nota, errata)], 111, [1]; with engraved frontispiece depicting a pharmaceutical cabinet to vol. I and two copper-engraved folding plates (numbered I-III, with pl. II inset in pl. I); a few minor marks, but a splendid set, clean and fresh throughout; finely bound (possibly for presentation) in contemporary Italian green morocco, panels roll-tooled in gilt, spines gilt in compartments with gilt red morocco lettering-pieces, volumes numbered directly in gilt, edges gilt, marbled endpapers.
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La farmacia descritta secondo i moderni principi di Lavoisier ec. …
First edition, a superb copy of this rare and comprehensive guide to modern pharmacy, following the principles of Lavoisier, by the Milanese pharmacist and chemist Paolo Sangiorgio (1748–1816).
Over the course of five volumes, the work is divided into eighteen sections, each subdivided into a number of articles which together examine and describe every aspect of pharmacy. After an opening article on the art of pharmacy, Sangiorgio discusses laboratories, weights and measures, chemical affinity and attraction, the use of heat and light, the nature and use of oxygen, the various states of water; the basic pharmaceutical operations, including the making of powders, decanting, clarification, mixture, solutions and extractions, infusions, distillation, crystalisation; salts, acids, vinegars, alkalis, and their combinations; metallic preparations, including the use of antimony, mercury; alcohols, liquid preparations, fats and oils, and syrups.
The final volume includes a collection of eighty letters addressed to Sangiorgio from some of the best-known Italian scientists, in praise of his work, including the anatomist Antonia Scarpa, Antonio Maria Vassalli-Eandi, and many others. The author was professor of chemistry and botany at Milan, as well as the pharmaceutical assessor at the Department of Olona. His other works include Della nuova nomenclatura chimica come non applicabile alla farmacia (Milan, 1794) and a four-volume Istoria delle piante medicate e delle loro parti e prodotti conosciuti sotto il nome di droghe officinali (1809-10).
Duveen, p. 529 (recording only first three volumes); outside Italy, OCLC records copies at UCLA, NLM, Wisconsin, the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, and the BIU Santé Pharmacie in Paris.
