FONTEYN, Nicolaas (fl. 1622-1644)

Lot 178
10.12.2025 12:00UTC +00:00
Classic
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Lieu de l'événementRoyaume-Uni, London
Commissionsee on Website%
ID 1514419
Lot 178 | FONTEYN, Nicolaas (fl. 1622-1644)
Valeur estimée
£ 5 000 – 7 000
FONTEYN, Nicolaas (fl. 1622-1644)
The Womans Doctour. Or, An exact and distinct Explanation of all such Diseases as are peculiar to that Sex. London: John Blague and Samuel Howes, 1652.
Rare first English edition of a guide to women’s health: ESTC lists just 6 other copies worldwide and no copy has appeared at auction since 1952 (RareBookHub).

The Womans Doctour, a translation of Fonteyn’s Syntagma medicum de morbis mulierum (Amsterdam, 1644), was intended for English physicians and lay readers alike. It includes detailed discussions of menstruation, conception, pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum care, and often takes an overtly moral position on illness by linking women’s health to chastity, sexual activity, and obedience. The text opens: ‘Women were made to stay at home, and to looke after Houshold employments, and because such business is accompanied with much ease, without any vehement stirrings of the body, therefore hath provident Nature assigned them their monethly Courses, that by the benefit of those evacuations, the feculent and corrupt bloud might be purified, which otherwise, as being the purest part of the bloud, would turne to ranke poyson, should it remaine in the body and putrifie’. ESTC R7033; Wellcome III, p.38. Not in NLM/Krivatsky.

Octavo (143 x 89mm). Title within woodcut border, woodcut head- and tailpieces, initials (without the blank R4, title border just cropped and chipped, headline on A2 cropped, tiny repaired hole on D8 touching page number, a number of leaves strengthened in gutter, occasional browning). Contemporary blind-ruled sheep (rebacked and recornered, small losses). Provenance: ‘Ann Doll her book’ (early ownership inscriptions) – Dr David Orme (1727-1812, Scottish physician who held the office of man-midwife extraordinary to the City of London Lying-in Hospital and lectured at Guy’s Hospital; bookplate) – Royal Society of Medicine (ink stamps [Obstetrical Society of London]).
Adresse de l'enchère CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
Royaume-Uni
Aperçu
10.12.2025 – 10.12.2025
Téléphone +44 (0)20 7839 9060
E-mail
Commission see on Website
Conditions d'utilisationConditions d'utilisation

Termes connexes

× Créer un abonnement de recherche