First edition of Thomas Erastus’ treatise on the occult qualities in pharmacology, owned and annotated by a family of eminent Cambridge physicians from the 16th and 17th centuries.
A Swiss physician and Calvinist theologian, Thomas Erastus (1524-1583) wrote extensively on medicine, astrology and alchemy, and was a fervent supporter of the medieval tradition, particularly of Galen and of Aristotelian natural philosophy – which put him in direct opposition to the predominant system of Paracelsus. His controversial ideas extended into religious topics: in his most famous work, the Theses (published posthumously in 1589), he argued that the sins committed by Christians should be punished by the State and not by the Church withholding sacraments as a punishment (a way of thinking subsequently known as Erastianism).
The present work was published in 1574, the same year that he was excommunicated by the Heidelberg consistory for his heretical views; though lifted a year later, the edict was a symptom of the tension agitating both religious and medical spheres of thought in Renaissance Europe. The present work is Erastus’ reply to a question posed by physician and Heidelberg professor Henricus Smetius, ‘whether there were drugs which by occult virtue affect particular parts of the body, and if so, how to know them’ (Thorndike V, 661). In his response, Erastus, though accepting of the existence of ‘occult virtues’ (i.e. intangible curative qualities about medical treatments and substances) is sceptical; he rejects much of the received wisdom and recommended remedies inherited from ancient and classical writers as unsupported, unproved even fraudulent, and contests the influence of astrology on their efficacy.
This copy has been owned and annotated by William Rant (1564-1627), a Cambridge physician who graduated in 1597 and practiced medicine in Norwich, his home county. He was a keen book collector, and acquired this particular volume before graduating: the title page bears his handwritten motto “Vita mortis Vita G. Rant” (dated 1590) and the title appears in an early manuscript catalogue of his personal collection (held at the Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MS D.213; this volume no.79). The annotations, all in Latin, are occasional and located mostly at the beginning of the book; they seem to be written in the small and neat hand of William senior, although it is credible that one of his sons contributed in underlining or commenting key passages. They are predominantly index notes, picking out and repeating key passages, rather than showing critical engagement with the text.
Rant left a detailed will in which he dispersed his library between his five sons. The “phisike books” were divided among two of them, his firstborn – and better-known - son William Rant junior (ca. 1604-1653) and his youngest child, Edward Rant (1613-1636). William junior graduated in Cambridge, like his father and uncles. In 1634 he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and in 1639 made Gulstonian Lecturer. Edward likely followed his long family tradition, since in his will his father expressly instructed his eldest sons to take care of his last son’s medical education.
Provenance: 1. From the private library of William Rant (1564-1627), and one of his sons, likely William Rant, junior (1604-1653), both physicians. 2. The British Museum, as attested by the binding and by two ink stamps on the verso of the titlepage, until it was sold as a duplicate in 1787 - a later annotation, possibly by a British Museum librarian, reads: “Dupl. NB. The Notes appear only Marginal references.” 3. The Medical Society of London (ink stamp on the titlepage), one of the oldest surviving medical societies in the UK. 4. Purchased in 1984 – together with the bulk of the Medical Society’s antiquarian books and manuscripts – by the Wellcome Trust, where the Medical Society’s collections had been deposited for safekeeping since 1964. A final ink stamp on the verso of the titlepage signals that the copy was subsequently “withdrawn by the Wellcome Library” (two copies of the same title are listed in the Wellcome Collection, copy 2 EPB/B/62409.1 from the same collection as the present).
VD16 E 3688. Adams E907. Thorndike, pp.661-4.
Besson, A. Classification in Private Library Catalogues of the English Renaissance, 1500-1640. University of London, 1988. Fuller, Thomas. The History of the University of Cambridge: And of Waltham Abbey. With the Appeal of Injured Innocence. London: Thomas Tegg, 1840. Mitchell, Tean. “The Medical Society of London and its library”. Health Libraries Review. Vol. 1 (1984): 213-214.
