★ Cotta, John [1575?-1650?]. A short discoverie of the vnobserued dangers of seuerall sorts of ignorant and vnconsiderate practisers of physicke in England: profitable not onely for the deceiued multitude, and easie for their meane capacities, but raising reformed and more aduised thoughts in the best vnderstandings: with direction for the safest election of a physition in necessitie by Iohn Cotta of Northampton Doctor in Physicke. London, Imprinted [by R. Field] for William Iones, and Richard Boyle dwelling in the Blacke-Friers, 1612.
In 4° (20 cm), A-S4, cc. [4], pp. 135 [1, Errata]. Un’ancora incisa al titolo. Il verso del titolo è bianco. Capilettera. Note a stampa al margine in latino. Dedica a Sir William Tate in A2 recto e verso, senza luogo né data. Seguono: To the reader e indice.
Prima edizione.
La parte di quest’opera che qui rileva è il Capitolo III del Second Booke, che ha il titolo di Astrologers, Ephemerides-masters (da pagina 94 a pagina 103). Il pensiero di Cotta mi pare sia espresso sinteticamente in queste frasi, che si leggono a pagina 99: The heavens indeed do oft and much also prevaile in raising, allaying, increasing, diminishing, enraging and calming the inward causes, but ever by a proportion, either with the temper and constitution of the sicke, or the humors of their bodies, whether originally bred, or after by time acquired. Saturne is therefore said a great Lord over melancholy bodies, in like manner the Moone over phlegmaticke. Iupiter and the Sunne in sanguine. Mars in cholericke […] and according to the greater or lesse proportion of their peculiar humors in the bodie, and the dispositions of the particular parts of the body, they more or lesse exercise their rule. Detto questo, Cotta esprime però tutto il suo disprezzo per i ciarlatani, che attribuiscono, anche in ambito medico, poteri e influenze che le stelle (uncertaines starres) non hanno certamente.
Esemplari: Bodleian Library, Oxford; St. John’s College, Oxford; Cambridge University (3); Glasgow University; British Library; Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland; Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh; Medical Society of London; Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München; University of Wisconsin, Madison; Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington; Harvard University; New York Public Library Research; Northwestern University, Medical Branch, Illinois; The National Library of Medicine of the USA; Library of Virginia, Richmond; Texas Technology University, Lubbock; UCLA Library, Los Angeles.
Bibliografia: Thorndike VII p. 93.
Altre edizioni:
1617, London, Imprinted by William Jones; sold by Edmund [Weaver], con il titolo A True Discouery of the Empericke, with the Fugitiue, Physition and Quacksaluer, who display their banners vpon posts: whereby his Maiesties subiects are not onely deceiued, but greatly endangered in the health of their bodies: Being very profitable as well for the ignorant, as for the learned: By I. C. Doctor in Physicke, in 4°, pp. 135 [1]. Esemplare della British Library;
1619, London, W.I. to be sold by I.Barnes. Esemplare della Bodleian Library, Oxford.