The touchstone of complexions: expedient and profitable for all such as bee desirous and carefull of their bodily health: containing most ready tokens, whereby every one may perfectly try, and thorowly know, as well the exact state, habit, disposition, and constitution of his body outwardly: as also the inclinations, affections, motions, and desires of his minde inwardly. by Lemnius, Levinus - 1633

London: Printed by E[lizabeth] A[llde] for Michael Sparke, 1633. 4to (18.5 cm, 7.5"). [4] ff., 248 pp., [5 (of 6)] ff., without the final blank.

De habitu et constitutione corporis was first printed in 1561 and is from the pen of Levinus Lemnius (1505–68), who received his medical degree from Padua, studied with Vesalius, was a friend of Dodoens and Gesner, and practiced in his hometown of Zirichne. This English translation of his work uses "complexion" in an archaic way that is explained by Hunter and Macalpine:
    "By complexion was meant the combination of 'qualities' such as hot and cold, moist and dry, and of the four humours in certain proportion which together made up a person's physical and mental temperament or habit; this in turn determined the diseases to which he was liable and the rules which preserved his health. This ancient pathophysiology was fully expounded by Lemiius. . . . [In order to avoid forgetfulness, dotage, lack of right wits, doltishness, idiocy, and the like], Lemnius recommended shaving the beard as much as a matter almost of mental as physical hygiene, and on the same lines advanced the ancient method of treating diseases of the head and so also of the mind by shaving the head to allow the 'grosse vapours' offending the brain to 'fume oute.' Although even in his time many considered this practice a 'vayne and absurde fable' it continued in widespread use as a treatment of insanity for more than three centuries" (p. 22)
    This is the third English-language edition, following the first of 1576 and the second of 1581, and it was also the last until the work was reprinted in 1881. The translation into English is by Thomas Newton (1543?–1607), the rector of Little Ilford, Essex.
    Provenance: 17th- or early 18th-century signature of Simon Tar(r)ver on verso of title-page and again in lower margin of leaf opposite p 1. On blank recto of dedication page, four lines and a few letters and numbers in a large hand, overall not quite intelligible to us but with "An Bensen" and the date(?) 1764 among the elements certain. 19th-century signature of Joseph Gardner in lower area of the verso of the last printed leaf. Most recently in the library of Robert Sadoff, M.D., sans indicia.
    A collector friend who is far more accomplished with English 17th-century hand than I (DMS), wrote me about Simon Tar(r)ver and his writing and jottings: "It is a fascinating example of someone who I would guess is barely able to write and almost certainly self-taught." For example he uses "Rote" for "Wrote" in association with one of his signatures and penned “Ingold land is my nashion” next to his name in another.
    WorldCat and ESTC combine to locate 13 U.S. libraries reporting ownership; however, the copy reported at Claremont Colleges seems to be a microform and the Countway copy is incomplete (lacking leaves 65–88).
    It should be noted that several of the reported copies give the book as "printed by E[dward] A[llde] for Michael Sparke," which is impossible as Edward died in 1628. Rather, "E.A." is his widow => Elizabeth Allde.
    
    STC (rev. ed.)15458; ESTC E108477; Hunter & Macalpine, Three hundred years of psychiatry 1535–1860. Contemporary calf with plain boards (blind-ruled borders), rebacked in the 20th century with a small area of the front board's leather replaced at lower outside corner; new, plain endpapers with a collector's pencilled notes and old cataloguing of another copy taped to rear pastedown; archival tape repairs to two upper margins. General age-toning and limited instances of staining from water, ink, and dust; a good to very good copy with => potentially quite interesting provenance.