Early 18th Century Manuscript Medical book - Dragons blood and powdered Mummy - 15th Century Antiphonal leaf binding - 18th Century Prayers inserted

This little early 18th Century Manuscript medicinal book is packed full of medical "cures" and personal touches.

The recipes, listed in the index pages, include cures for dog bites, the plague, and swollen testicles. All are a little fartetched, and I would be a little scared to use many of them today.

One recipe - purported to help a sore stomach - suggests mixing these varied ingredients together as a cure(!):

"Take some Armenian clay, the blood of a dragon, powdered mummy (a half ounce), Whale sperm (two drams) and a dram of rubarb - mix together and take 1 gram at a time to help symptoms"

The book also includes several early inserted colourful prayers including one of a skull. In this religious time, when medicine was largely ineffective, one can imagine that praying to god may have been safer than seeing a Doctor

The work is bound in a utilitarian and worn parchment antiphonal leaf with 4 staves of faded musical notation and associated text.

A Rare and nice early medicinal object worthy of deeper study.

Provenance: Joseph Clement Lohaÿ recolets (Title page). The Viscount of Visquenne(?) (last page of text before the index)