Pharmacopoeia Londinensis. Or, the New London Dispensatory. In Six Books. Translated into English for the publick Good.... Together with several choice Medicines added by the Author. As also, The Praxis of Chymistry, As it's now Exercised, fitted to the meanest Capacity. by SALMON, William

London, Printed by Thomas Dawks: and are to be sold by the Booksellers of London, 1678. . First Salmon edition; 8vo (19 x 12.5 cm); text in English in 2 columns, pen trials to pastedowns, dated gift inscription in pencil to front free endpaper recto, ownership inscription in pen to title, bookplate to rear pastedown, a few contemporary annotations in pen to margins, a little browned with occasional light staining, the odd chip, small tear into text of X1, 2K1 with very small loss of text, the odd small hole with loss; contemporary panelled calf, expertly rebacked preserving original spine, a very good copy; [14], 896pp.
The first edition of this translation by William Salmon (1644-1713) of the Pharmacopoeia Londinensis, substantially revised and much expanded from Culpeper with over 4000 treatments, remedies and definitions of key terms.

Like Culpeper, Salmon was not a licensed member of the Royal College of Physicians, preferring to market himself as a 'Professor of Physick'. At the time, the college had a monopoly over the practice of internal medicine, and the Pharmacopoeia (an officially sanctioned compendium of treatments printed in Latin) was published in an effort to regulate the profession. Salmon's English translation opened up access to this knowledge to ordinary people, but it also introduced a variety of unorthodox material drawn from a host of different sources, much of it eyebrow-raising, some even shocking.

Thus, the chapter on 'Man' includes treatments from a 'dead body', with recipes for 'Spiritus Cerebri humani': a 'Noble Antiepileptick' formed from the 'Brain of a young man slain, with all its Membranes, Arteries, Veins, and Nerves', and 'Essence of Mans Skull': said to be 'prevalent against the Falling Sickness' (p.196).

Other treatments are derived from dissolved 'Arabian Mummy', although because these are 'scarcely to be got', Salmon includes a recipe for the preparation of an 'Artificial or Modern Mummy': 'Take the Carcase of a young man (some say red hair'd) not dying of a Disease, but killed; let it lie 24 hours in clear water in the Air: cut the flesh in pieces, to which add Powder of Myrrh, and a little Aloes: imbibe it 24 hours in the spirit of Wine and Turpentine, take it out, hang it up twelve hours; imbibe it again 24 hours in fresh spirit then hang up the pieces in a dry air, and a shadowy place, so will they dry and not stink' (p.194)

Scarce. COPAC records only 8 copies in institutional collections.