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Patin exchanged an abundant correspondence with the provincial physicians of his time. Not intended for publication, these letters, so "nervous and so sparkling", with great freedom of tone, are interesting both for literary history and for that of medicine, as well as for the decrees and pronounced against the use of cinchona antimony.
Coming from a modest family, Guy Patin turned away from a religious career to train in medicine. He became dean of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris in 1650, but he had a conception of his art attached to tradition and hostile to all kinds of progress.
In his correspondence, on the contrary, he demonstrates a bold, light and removed style, sometimes humorous and raw... a real modernism.
His letters "Familiar, unpretentious, often playful, have the carelessness of a conversation and the approval of a confidence" (Bayle).
He also evokes in his letters his passion for books, always curious about novelties, and looking for old editions, creating to describe himself the word bibliomaniac (letter of May 1, 1654).
Nice copy in contemporary binding. Full brown calf. Back with raised bands decorated with a decoration of fleurons and gilded boxes. Title piece in old red morocco.
Condition: Nice copy, binding in good condition, pierced corners. Fresh and clean interior.
Very complete with the frontispiece portrait of the author by Ogier.
Guy Skate
Selected letters. In which are contained several historical particulars on the life and death of the scholars of this century, on their writings, ...
In The Hague, Chez Adrien Moetiens, 1683
in-12 (15 x 8.5 cm); 9ff. 522pp.
Subject: Rare Original Edition Letters Guy Patin Medicine Bibliophilia 1683 67269199
