Leather bound 19th century Prescription formulas

This book has some condition issues, and isn't THAT old (1855 - but is that the printed date)? Based on the number of reprints maybe its an interesting book? Let me know if I need different pictures.

 

The PDR of its day. Do you have a question? I gave something like this to one of my physicians, who really loved it. It included a recipe for the best sugar pill ever & many of the 'medications' were things we would consider flavors & fragrances.

 

A cup of oil paint before bed-time works wonders I hear.

 

I wasn't sure whether this was the original edition printed in 1855 or a reprint. And whether it is a good find or just "meh". I saw a ton of reprints but didn't see any originals (but that's probably my lack of book finding skills - I use bookfinder).

 

Given the nature of the book, think it would make a big deal of it if it were updated, corrected, and/or latest edition.

Edit: has anything been added to the introductory material?

 

I like the Old Established - Cheap - Book & Variety Store.

 

Abebooks.com lists a first edition, published in London by John Churchill in 1854.
https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/Bo...centlyadded=all&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-title1

Your copy is probably the first American edition.

 

Thanks. So $50 book in better condition, makes this one rather "meh". Kind of fun to browse through though. Thanks for the pointer; I'll try abebooks next time.

 

It looks original to me (circa mid-1850s). And I think I've identified the owner of the book whose name is written near the label of the bookshop.

Dr. Henry De Witt - or DeWitt- Pawling (lived 1810-1892) practiced in the town of King of Prussia, Pennsylvania and was well known enough to have several biographical sketches in old local histories. He served as a surgeon on a naval frigate in the 1830s, as a young man. Then he later practiced in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

Biographical sketch about 3/4 of the way down on this page. And more links to follow!:
http://files.usgwarchives.net/pa/montgomery/history/local/mchb0044.txt

http://radnorhistory.org/archive/articles/ytmt/?p=841

https://books.google.com/books?id=kno_AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA419&lpg=PA419&dq="dr.+henry+dewitt+pawling"&source=bl&ots=J3JpNl6xBv&sig=ACfU3U1kExUuJB4g6j7mqzXnGEPLEA6FjQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjLnr22xOnkAhVGKawKHVWhBZIQ6AEwA3oECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q="dr. henry dewitt pawling"&f=false

Bio sketch about halfway down:
http://www.kophistory.org/wpfolder/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/KOPHS-Gazette-5-1-2016-Spring.pdf

And about the book: The National Library of Medicine has digitized an 1857 printing of the book.
https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/bookviewer?PID=nlm:nlmuid-61541220R-bk#page/1/mode/2up

From what I can tell it appears that the 1855 edition was the first published in the U.S. Looking at this HathiTrust catalog record, you can see in the right-hand column that there were later editions in the 1860s and 1870s. It also shows a 1907 edition with a different author listed but it includes "Beasley" in the title. I assume this was somebody carrying on the same type of publication.
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010600863

I also found this entry in WorldCat, from the Library of Congress. In 1993 somebody registered with the Copyright office a book titled Apothecary Antiquities: Book of Prescriptions..., based on Beasley's work. Whether they ever sold this book I have not tried to determine. It may just be one copy on deposit with the Library of Congress, which is required when filing for copyright.
https://www.worldcat.org/title/apot...s-containing-2900-prescriptions/oclc/30475328

Whew!

 

Awesome! Thank you!!