Receipts for Preparing and Compounding the Principal Medicines made use of by the late Mr. Ward. Together with an introduction, &c. By John Page, Esq; to whom Mr. Ward left his Book of Secrets.

PAGE, John.

Edité par Printed for and sold by Henry Whitridge, at the South-West corner of the Royal-Exchange, in Cornhill. 1763, 1763

A propos de cet article

[2], 33, [1]p. 8vo. Disbound; some pen trials on imprint, otherwise a clean copy with a small mark on final blank page. ESTC T143412, this issue not in the BL. There were various press variants of the work all of which are recorded in a few copies only by ESTC. This variant has the press figures 3, 1, 4 and 2 on pages 7, 16, 22, and 31 respectively. Joshua Ward made a fortune from his startling cures, leaving his secrets to John Page who published them for charity. Ward treated George II, Chesterfield and Gibbon amongst many others. Fielding paid a high tribute to Ward in Voyage to Lisbon, but he was ridiculed by Pope in Imitations of Horace, 'Ward tried on Puppies and the Poor his Drop,' was a conspicuous figure in Hogarth's Consultation of Physicians, and is also depicted in the Harlot's Progress. John Page, who was entrusted with the publication of the recipes was at that time Member of Parliament for Chichester in Sussex. He had known Ward in Paris 'before he began to dispense medicines and resided there afterwards at different periods'. He seems to have been among Ward's earliest patients, and, in his prefatory note, insisted that he had been cured by Ward's emetic drops and sweats. He was entirely willing to undertake the publication of the materials when 'Mr. Ward in his last illness, directed his book of medical secrets to be delivered to Mr. Page after his death.' Page soon found that the information in the recipes was not sufficient for publication. In the early days Ward had compounded his own prescriptions, but as his practice grew to extraordinary proportions, he was forced to make use of two apothecaries. The account in the Gentleman's Magazine proceeds: 'Upon inspection it was found not to contain receipts for all Mr. Ward's medicines; and the receipts which it did contain were so imperfect and inaccurate, that the medicine to which they related could not be prepared from them. These omissions, defects, and inaccuracies, could be supplied only by the chemists whom Mr. Ward had employed to prepare the ingredients of which his medicines were compounded, and who yet could not make the medicines without the book.' For a time Page faced an impasse. He could not afford to offer the apothecaries the financial consideration they had a right to expect, since they 'had no means of subsistence but their profession'. The problem was solved 'by the parental goodness of his majesty, who, that he might unite the interests of individuals with that of the public, immediately settled a pension upon Mr. d'Osterman and Mr. White, the chemists who were employed by Mr. Ward, who alone could supply the deficiencies of the book, and whom alone the book would have enabled to make the medicines'. Ref: Nicholson, Marjorie H. Ward's 'Pill and Drop' and Men of Letters. Journal of the History of Ideas, 1968.

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Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Receipts for Preparing and Compounding the Principal Medicines made use of by the late Mr. Ward. Together with an introduction, &c. By John Page, Esq; to whom Mr. Ward left his Book of Secrets.
• Éditeur: Printed for and sold by Henry Whitridge, at the South-West corner of the Royal-Exchange, in Cornhill. 1763
• Date de parution: 1763
• Reliure: Couverture souple
• Catalogues du vendeur:
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