Lot 1005: CROLL, OSWALD. 1563-1609. La Royalle Chymie. Lyons: Pierre Drobet, 1624.

La Royalle Chymie. Lyons: Pierre Drobet, 1624.
3 parts in 1. 8vo (171 x 110 mm). [6], 223, [1]; [2], 210, [60]; 119, [31] pp. Engraved title-page, woodcuts in the text. Period limp vellum. Some light dampstains, hinges cracked, stains to vellum.
Provenance: Melvin Edward Jahn (bookplate).

FIRST EDITION IN FRENCH of Croll's classic Basilica Chemica (first published in Frankfurt, 1608). DSB describes this book as "the standard work on iatrochemistry." Croll was an influential advocate of Paracelsus, and this work contains an exposition on his teachings, a treatise on materia medica in which Croll emphasizes the chemical medicines, and a treatise on the Doctrine of Signatures (Traicte des Signatures), which assumes that medicinal plants and other sources of medicine bear some symbol or sign of their value for medicine in their color, shape or other visible sign, by which God intends that they shall become known to those expert and wise in the interpretation of these signs.