Discurso medico, y phisico agradable a los Medicos ancianos, y Despertador para los modernos, contra el medicamento Caphè. Por El. Doct. Isidro Fernandez Matienço.
En Madrid: Por Melchor Alvarez, Año 1693. In modern half leather. First edition. Title page ruled with typographical ornament, with an engraved portrait of Anthony of Padua. [10] 55 [1] p. Trimmed, some pages the page number or catchword, occasionally the last line shaved. Old library stamp masked in white on 3¶1 and on the last page. Otherwise in fine condition.
Scarce and early Spanish work on coffee.
Fernandez Matienzo’s work is the second book in Spanish about coffee. Discurso medico is a response to a treaties, Noticia de el Caphe, by Juan de Tariol, published the preceding year, in 1692, in Palencia, in which the author discussed the healing properties of the drink. Fernandez Matienzo, a doctor of medicine of Palencia, disproves his friend Tariol’s assertions, argues that coffee has no such positive benefits, it is on the contrary, harmful, and recommends the readers to drink hot water — the only healing ingredient of coffee — instead of the “insipid and bitter drink” (desabrida y amarga bebida).
Scarce, no copies recorded by RBH. Outside of Spain, IB locates only two copies in the British Library (UK) and at Berkeley (USA).
IB 106526
.
Price: €3,200.00