Lascivious eyes, breast pumps, prurience, cold baths

Tribolet, Albert (Albrecht) von. Sorgfalt für die Brüste junger Frauen sowohl in Rücksicht ihrer Erhaltung als ihrer Verschönerung.

Four late 18th century medical works in a single volume, all very rare, two specifically treating female hygiene and healthcare. The treatise by the Berne physician Samuel Albrecht Tribolet (1771-1823), entitled "Care for the Breasts of Young Women in Respect to Their Preservation and Titivation", discusses the care of the nipple, breastfeeding and its advantages for mother and child, and how to induce and stop milk production, as well as various ailments of the female breast; it also contains medical notes on the fashion of exposing the bust, by means of cushions or bodices, to the "lascivious male eye". The folding plate shows several varieties of early breast pumps.

Bound first is the first edition of a healthcare manual for young female readers by the prolific popular physican J. G. Essich from Augsburg (a single copy recorded in libraries: Munich University Library, shelfmark 0001/8 Med. 423). Treats proper breathing, clothes, personal hygiene and hair care, make-up, exercises, food and drink, but also the emotions and affects.

The "Healthcare Dictionary" by the versatile Bohemian educator Wenzel (1754-1809), hailed as the "Austrian Eckhartshausen", discusses the sanitary effects of various meats and vegetables, drinks, dishes, and even spiritual nourishment (arcana: "not be be suffered in the house by any reasonable person"; prurience: "undermines one's health; remedies: avoiding the sight of objects which arouse one's love, including not only dainty women and young gentlemen, but also drawings, engravings, pictures, books, etc."). A single copy known in libraries (Kremsmünster monastery, shelfmark 8°L 934).

The final item in the sammelband must be considered unique: an anonymous pamphlet addressed "To Monarchs", in which a physician gives his own case history and the story of his cure through a cold bath, and recounting several other case histories and their unexpected remedies. The Viennese publisher Wucherer, born in Reutlingen, is best known for his radically enlightened pamphlets produced in the age of relaxed censorship under Emperor Joseph II between 1784 and 1789. The present work is unknown even to his bibliographer Winter.

Binding rubbed, corners and spine-ends bumped. Some browning; an old handwritten table of contents and notes on the works' individual prices on the endpapers. Old bookplate.