Medicinal Experiments, or, A Collection of Choice and Safe Remedies

Introduction

Published in England in 1703, Medicinal Experiments, or, A Collection of Choice and Safe Remedies (subtitle: For the most part Simple and easily prepared: Very Useful in Families and fitted for the Service of Country People. By the Honorable R. Boyle; fellow of the royal society) is a handbook by Robert Boyle that contains at-home remedies for well over 500 ailments. Given its existence in perhaps the height of the recipe book era in Europe, the book was immensely popular and ended up with four editions and three different volumes, with treatments for conditions from jaundice to muscle cramps. The book was primarily intended to be used in the English countryside where physicians were often not readily accessible and to supplement formal medicine with easy-to-follow homemade remedies. This edition of Medicinal Experiments, or, A collection of Choice and Safe Remedies has been obtained by the University of Pennsylvania via the Edgar Fahs Smith Memorial Collection and is currently available in the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books, and Manuscripts. Boyle’s work and the publication of this book ultimately provide valuable insight into both early-18th century bookmaking and the popular genre of recipe books in England.

Historical Context

Robert Boyle

Born in Ireland in 1627, Robert Boyle was one of the most influential scientists and natural philosophers of the 17th century. From a young age, Boyle’s aptitude was well-noticed, starting his education at Eton College alongside his brother at the age of 8. Boyle was particularly fascinated by the idea of scientific experimentation, and studied the subject at Oxford from 1656 to 1668. At Oxford, he worked alongside the famous Robert Hooke to write his first scientific publication on the physical properties of air, New Experiments Physico-Mechanicall, Touching the Spring of the Air, and Its Effects, in 1960. The second edition of that book was published just two years later and had perhaps Boyle’s most famous scientific achievement, "Boyle’s Law," which explained the inverse relationship between pressure and volume of a gas. His devotion to the principles of scientific experimentation in studying the natural world ultimately led many to label him as the “father of modern chemistry.” Towards the end of his life, Boyle shifted his focus towards organizing and compiling the many medical recipes he had collected during his illustrious lifetime. While he passed before the later editions of Medicinal Experiments, or, A Collection of Choice and Safe Remedies were published, his creativity and expertise can easily be seen through the countless recipes in the book.

Recipe Books

Recipe Books of the 17th and 18th Centuries

Medicinal Experiments, or, A Collection of Choice and Safe Remedies was published at perhaps the height of the recipe book era in England. Recipe books, also known as receipt books, were established about a century prior and served a variety of different genres, including cooking, artisanal crafts, and medicine. While the earliest recipe book to be published in Europe is accepted to be Girolamo Ruscelli’s I secreti in 1555, the idea of creating compilations of recipes and trade “secrets” dates centuries prior and can be found in ancient cultures across the world. Nevertheless, the 17th and 18th centuries appear to be a time of heightened use and interest in recipe books likely due to increases in literacy and decreases in costs of paper and production. While many of these were household projects of compiling cooking or basic medicine notes, historians now more widely recognize clear patterns of public circulation and an overall communal approach to the production and editing of these manuscripts. In fact, these early recipe books were the testing grounds for many of the eventual trademark organizational features of the genre, including indexes, title pages, and cross-referencing of recipes.

Medical Recipe Books

Perhaps the field most impacted by the increased popularity of recipe books, medicine had been experiencing a revolution of its own towards publications that appealed to a more generalized, lay-person audience. While there still remained a strong interest in Latin textbooks that could educate physicians, more and more vernacular works were published in English on topics ranging from herbal medicine to common midwife practices. In fact, the growth of these books aimed at the general population became so widespread in the 17th and 18th centuries that physicians of the time began making concerted efforts to restrict medical knowledge from reaching the lay-people. The time period was particularly suited for this struggle given that the majority of people at the time adopted a hybrid approach between using professional medical advice and homemade remedies for treating common ailments. Due to this continued emphasis on the centuries-old practice of domestic medicine, printed manuscripts, especially those that had authorship from well-recognized and trusted individuals, of medical recipes remained in high-demand.

Book Specifics

History Behind Medicinal Experiments, or, A Collection of Choice and Safe Remedies

After a long and illustrious career as a philosopher and experimental scientist, Boyle spent much of his time at the end of his life compiling and revising the medicinal recipes he had accrued throughout his life. Some experts estimate that he may have had more than one thousand recipes and notes ranging in complexity from rare chemical reactions to everyday herbal remedies, but nevertheless Boyle's first publication included only 50 recipes and was meant for private circulation. Titled Some Receipts of Medicines, the initial compilation in 1688 grew to 100 recipes in Medicinal Experiments, which was published a year after Boyle had passed away in 1692.

From this second edition, and the first namesake for the fourth edition currently held at the University of Pennsylvania, the target audience and goal of the collection was evident. The book’s format, being a duodecimo, was small at around 7 by 4.5 inches in size and could fit into a pocket and easily be carried around. The book was also initially sold at an affordable price of one shilling (about $15 in USD today) and became popular due to this price point and its appeal for those who did not have ready access to physicians. The second edition in fact stated that the book was “Useful in Families, and Very Serviceable to Country People."

Due to the popularity and success of the book’s second edition, as noted by the publishers in the preface, two more volumes were created in 1693 and 1694. These editions expanded upon the original work of Boyle and drew from his original collection of over a thousand medical recipes. In 1703, these three volumes were all combined together and published in one collection containing over 500 recipes. In this version, which is the edition held in the Kislak Center at the University of Pennsylvania, each of the volumes are printed in succession, with an index for the ensuing volume and that volume itself printed immediately following the previous volume (See navigation for more details).