Anastasis corticis Peruviae; seu, Chinae chinae defensio, Sebastiani Badi ... Contra ventilationes Joannis Jacobi Chifletii, gemitusque Vopisci Fortunati Plempii ... Opus in tres libros distinctum, & in eis documentae medicinae, & philosophiae
Author: Sebastiano Bado "Baldí" (1640-1676)
Date: 1663
Publisher: Typis Petri Joannis Calenzan
Place: Genuae (Genoa)
Description:
[32]+278 pages. Quarto ( 7 3/4" x 6") bound in contemporary vellum. (European Americana 663/8; Garrison-Morton 1826; Palau 22395) First edition.
Many copies (such as at the National Central Library of Rome) are found bound with an unrelated work by the same author, "Phlebotomiae necessitas," plus an index covering both works, and 4 extra preliminary leaves. Others like the present copy and the one at the National Library of Austria were issued with fewer preliminaries, no "Phlebotomiae Necessitas" and no index.
Jesuit's bark, also known as cinchona bark, Peruvian bark or China bark, is a former remedy for malaria, as the bark contains quinine used to treat the disease. The bark of several species of the genus Cinchona, family Rubiaceae indigenous to the western Andes of South America, was discovered as a folk medicine treatment for malaria by Jesuit missionaries in Peru during the 17th century.
Circa 1650, the physician Sebastiano Bado declared that this bark had proved more precious to mankind than all the gold and silver that the Spaniards had obtained from South America. In the 18th century, the Italian professor of medicine Bernardino Ramazzini said that the introduction of Peruvian bark would be of the same importance to medicine that the discovery of gunpowder was to the art of war, an opinion endorsed by contemporary writers on the history of medicine. The value of Jesuit's bark, and the controversy surrounding it, were both recognized by Benjamin Franklin, who wittily commented upon it in his Poor Richard's Almanac for October 1749, telling the story of Robert Talbot's use of it to cure the French Dauphin. Hugh Algernon Weddell observed, "Few subjects in natural history have excited general interest in a higher degree than cinchona; none perhaps have hitherto merited the attention of a greater number of distinguished men". Dissension, however, was rife at the time, mainly due to its source of discovery, the Jesuits. Alexander von Humboldt said, "It almost goes without saying that among Protestant physicians hatred of the Jesuits and religious intolerance lie at the bottom of the long conflict over the good or harm effected by Peruvian Bark".
Condition:
Backstrip frayed and split at binding threads; rear hinge split, lacking rear free endpaper; marca de fuego stamped to top edge else a good copy of a scarce item.
