Octavo panelled sprinkled calf on 4 raised bands with red gilt spine title label (rebacked but one cover now detached/top compartment of spine damaged/edges slightly worn) Titlepage +[14]pp Dedication & Preface +203pp +[8]pp index. The 4 contents leaves that presumably belonged at the front are misbound after page 194. Coat of arms book plate of G.W.F. Gregor on pastedown. Index and a few leaves with pale marginal damp mark but all leaves, clean, crisp & supple. *The author complains that the price of drugs has increased rapidly and without cause during his tenure at St. Barts. That there is mis-prescription and fashion in drugs when there are perfectly good remedies available for much less money. This was also a territorial dispute between physicians and apothecaries who, during the late 17th and early 18th centuries had encroached on doctor's rights to prescribing and making up of their own medicines. Practices at this time included feeding gold to animals so that patients should "benefit" from eating their flesh, of grinding up pearl into powders etc. A scarce book in any edition with the Wellcome collection holding this but of the copyright libraries only the British Library and Oxford listing this title.