Manual of Veterinary Specific Homeopathy. Comprising Diseases of Horses, Cattle, Sheep, Hogs, Dogs, and Poultry, and Their Specific Homeopathic Treatment.
New York: Humphreys' Homeopathic Medicine Company, 1888. Hardcover. 7 by 4 1/2 inches; 178 by 115 mm. With large and attractive stable chart bound at rear. Page numbering difficult to describe, but one attempt is 5 pages of advertisements, 3 pages illustrating horse anatomy, 402, ix, 5 pages ads, 403-416 pages. (In other words, 416 pages plus 10 pages of ads and 12 other pages). Bound with a black cloth spine and yellow paper-covered boards printed in orange. Binding is sound. Boards and page edges are dust-soiled, and the front board is stamped in purple ink "Compliments of J. R. Hofflin & Co./The Druggists./101 Washington Ave. S.,/Minneapolis, Minn." Page-sized advertisements for Hofflin are also pasted inside the front board and on the rear board, and a more extensive Hofflin ink-stamp is on the front free endpaper and in blank areas of eleven other pages. And to clear up any remaining confusion, each page of the 14-page index at the rear also has a shorter purple Hofflin ink-stamp, without loss of legibility. Item #901
Frederick K. Humphreys was a physician born in upstate New York in 1816. Established in New York City in 1853, his company, still active today as Humphreys Pharmacal Inc., sold patent medicines for all creatures, including humans, and also published a variety of health manuals, including one for veterinary medicine. (At one time it claimed to be distributing its regular manual, for humans, in English, German, French, Spanish and Portuguese at a rate of three million copies per year.) The title page of this copy describes it as the second revised and enlarged edition and is dated 1888; however, according to the preface and introductions in this copy, the first edition appeared in 1860, with a second revised and enlarged edition in 1872, a third, also revised and enlarged, in 1877, and a fourth, again revised and enlarged, in 1886. This copy is a complete one, including the large stable chart bound inside the rear cover. Dated 1882, printed in red and black, and measuring 25 by 19 3/4 inches (635 by 500 mm), the chart was intended to be removed from the book and posted in a stable. It provides an extensive list of horse ailments and the appropriate Humphreys medicines to use as cures. Aside from the fold lines inherent in its inclusion in the book, the chart has the Hofflin druggists stamp in four spots (including one on the verso) but is otherwise in fine condition, a surprising state considering its size, age and vulnerable position in the book.
Price: $375.00