A Niewe Herball, or Historie of Plantes: wherein is contayned the whole discourse and perfect description of all sortes of Herbes and Plantes... First set foorth in the Doutche or Almaigne tongue... And nowe first translated out of French into English by Henry Lyte Esquyer.

Bookseller Notes

A scarce, complete, composite copy of this highly influential herbal by the court physician to Emperor Rudolf II of Austria and Professor of Medicine at Leiden University, Rembert Dodoens. Its immediate success was due partly to the language in which it was first published in 1554, Dodoens' vernacular (Dutch), thus broadening its appeal beyond the Latin-reading medical elite, and, to the arrangement of the catalogued plants, including many medicinal herbs, listed in six groups, as opposed to the usual alphabetical order, according to their common habits and properties, a more practical approach which appealed to botanists and gardeners. Printed in Antwerp, in order to make use of the blocks of the original edition, around two thirds of the highly detailed woodcuts were based on those of Fuchs' New-Kreuterbchlein, while 200 or so were from drawings by Pieter van der Borcht the Elder. The translation by Henry Lyte of Somerset, who was himself a considerable botanist was from the French version by Charles l'Ecluse. The influence of this edition was profound, leading, not least, to the great herbal of John Gerard. (R. Visseer, Dodonaeus and the herbal tradition, Leuven University Press, 2001)John Redman Coxe (1773-1864), alumnus of Edinburgh University and early advocate of vaccination (his son bearing the name, Edward Jenner Coxe), was Professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Most pertinent to this work, he invented the popular 'Coxe's Hive Syrup', was instrumental in the formation of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, and succeeded in cultivating the jalap plant, whose roots provided a useful cathartic drug.