E is for…

Elixirated spirit of scurvy-grass

Medical advertising of J. Russel’s elixirated spirit found in C.8.16

 

Medical advertising at its most persuasive can be seen in one of three copies (in two settings: one very rare, another the only known copy) of this woodcut handbill. ‘J. Russel, physician and oculist, at the Two Blew-Posts against Grays-Inn in Holbourn’ here extols the applications of his elixirated spirit in the late 17th century.

 

Errors

Title page of Introduction a la vie devote de Saint François de Sales, evesque et prince de Geneve (1695)

 

It is 1695, and almost 250 years have passed since Johann Gutenberg first set the ball rolling – you would think his successors might have mastered it by now. But no! Here we find the Parisian printer Frédéric Léonard, imprimeur ordinaire du Roi and imprimeur de l’ordre de Cîteaux, misprinting… his own name!