Second(?) edition of a rare treatise on the use of bezoar stones (hardened accumulations of matter - often partly hair -¬ taken from the gut of a goat or other animal) as a universal antidote to poisons, by Angelo Sala (1576-1637), an Italian chemist and Paracelsist doctor, who seems to have belonged to the circle of Michael Maier in The Hague. The word "bezoar" derives from the Persian for "antidote" and Islamic medical treatises had discussed them since the 12th century.
Around 1610 Sala became personal physician to a cousin of William of Orange, Count Johann Ludwig von Nassau, whom he followed in the Protestant camp in the Upper Palatinate. In 1612 he settled in The Hague, where he worked as a doctor and taught German, French, English and chemistry. Sala's experiments with silver salts, moreover, laid the foundations for the development of the photographic process.
The present edition is the first book by Sala that Govert Basson in Leiden published. Bögels states (in error?) that it is "a reprint of two earlier Geneva editions", but we find no Geneva edition of this title, which can also appear with the spelling "bezoarticorum". WorldCat does record a single copy of a 1613 Erfurt edition, and in the same year Sala published a different book at Geneva. Otherwise the present edition seems to be the earliest.
In very good condition. Bibl. med. Neerl. 384; Bögels, Govert Basson, printer, bookseller, publisher, Leiden 1612-1630 (1992), 59.12.12 (pp. 154-155); Ferguson II, pp. 315-316; STCN (4 copies); Thorndike VII, pp. 167-169; Wellcome 5711; not in Duveen; Krivatsy; Morton.