HEALTH, A POEM. Shewing how to procure, preserve, and restore it. To which is annex'd the doctor's decade. The second edition, corrected. By Dabry Dawne, M.D.

[BAYNARD, Edward.]

Edité par London: printed and sold by James Bettenham at the Crown in Pater-Noster-Row, 1719

A propos de cet article

8vo, pp. [x], 48; disbound. Second edition, 'corrected': first published in 1716, so this is the first posthumous edition and very likely the source of all subsequent texts. Health is a medical poem with long-lasting popularity by 1764 nine editions had appeared, along with several piracies, and reprints in Dublin, Bristol, Manchester, and Boston, in New England (1724). The poem was still being printed in the early 19th century. Edward Baynard (1641?-1717) was probably born in Preston, in Lancashire, and received his medical education at Aberdeen and Leiden. Eventually he moved to London, where he became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1687. In the 1690s he played an active role in the bitter dispute over the establishment of a dispensary of medicines for the City of London; in this affair he sided with the apothecaries, who were opposed to such an innovation, but he is not, as is sometimes said, the original of Horoscope in Samuel Garth's famous poem about the affair (that was Francis Bernard). Baynard appears to have had a successful practice, and to have acquired a reputation as a wit; he was a friend and correspondent of the satirical writer Tom Brown. There was a substantial auction catalogue of his library issued in 1721, four years after his death, but it is not entirely clear how many of the books actually belonged to him. As a doctor, Baynard was a believer in moderation. In 1709 he published a broadside poem called Advice to Claret-Drinkers, which begins, 'Pass by a tavern-door, my son' (not in Foxon, but there is a copy in the Bodleian); the text of this poem is reprinted here in the introduction. Health, in doggerel verse, expands on this theme: Fly all excess, and first take care, Of wine and women to beware. Sport, dally and tattle with 'em rarely, And marry not a wife too early; Stay till you're grown, and joints are knit, And have you money got, and wit. The poem also gives advice on diet and exercise; Baynard was keen on swimming and riding, but did not recommend jogging ('Walk to be warm, but not to sweat'). At the end is a slightly revolting 'Doctor's Decade; Or, the Ten Utensils of his Trade', i.e. 'Piss, Spew, and Spit, Perspiration and Sweat; Purge, Bleed, and Blister, Issues and Clyster.' The pseudonym on the title page is an anagram of Edw. Baynard. Foxon B111. The earliest editions of this poem are rare; for this one the ESTC lists nine locations.

N° de réf. du vendeur 23244

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: HEALTH, A POEM. Shewing how to procure, preserve, and restore it. To which is annex'd the doctor's decade. The second edition, corrected. By Dabry Dawne, M.D.
• Éditeur: London: printed and sold by James Bettenham at the Crown in Pater-Noster-Row
• Date de parution: 1719
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • Poetry