JOUBERT (Laurent). - Lot 67

JOUBERT (Laurent). Erreurs populaires au fait de la médecine et régime de santé. Bordeaux, Simon Millanges, 1578. In-8, limp vellum, double fillet, Renaissance cartouche in center, spine decorated, gilt edges (16th-century binding). First edition of the most famous work by Laurent Joubert (1529-1582), ordinary physician to Henri III, dealing with obstetrics and popular misconceptions about medicine. It was followed in the same year by two editions, one in Avignon and the other in Paris (see Valérie Worth-Stylianou, Les Traités d'obstétrique en langue française au seuil de la modernité, Droz, 2007, p. 194). Neither a disciple nor an emulator of Rabelais, [Joubert] dealt with the medical errors and vulgar prejudices of his time with talent and sometimes with Rabelaisian verve (J. Boucher, "Rabelais et Laurent Joubert", in Revue d'histoire de la pharmacie, 1933). The second part, in continuous pagination but with a separate title page, is entitled: Question vulgaire. Quel langage parleroit un enfant qui n'auroit jamais ouï parler. Fine copy, set in contemporary gilt vellum. Old handwritten bookplate on title. Some wetness and wormholes on several leaves. The last leaf, blank, has not been preserved.