Rathlauw, Jan Pieter

Collection of alchemical extracts, translations, notes, etc., with medical and other receipts in English, Dutch, German, French and Latin. On pp. 9, 120, 121, 124, and the verso of the last leaf are rough pen-drawings of furnaces: inside the front cover is pasted a folding sketch of a brick furnace, and inside the lower cover a pencil-drawing of distilling apparatus. On the first leaf is pasted down a pen and wash-drawn symbolic alchemical picture, beneath which is written 'In this hiroglophic Picture arre contained the whole Science of Hermetical arth, it was given me by an adept in the year 1769 at Amsterdam'. On pp. 60, 61 is a copy of 'My obligation to P[iker] and Blakburn'. This begins: 'Know all men by the presents. That J. P. Rathlauw of John Street Tottenham Court Road, Surgeon, do bind and hold myself firmly bound unto Rob[ert] Pi[ker] and Esq[uire?] Blackburn in the County of Surry in a sollem Covenant and profound Secrecy ...' The document is an oath, not to reveal 'the secret ... relating to the arcanum or Secret Subject or Mistery of the ancient Phy[losopher], caled the Hermetic Science, or the true preparation of the Paracelsian Medicin also being the profound Magistery in making Elixir, quintess[ence] alchestical preparation, tincture and the Phylosoph[ers] Stone ...'. It is dated 29 May 1783. After the index there are 2 leaves containing a list of alchemical books, some of which are noted as being possessed by Rathlauw.

1783

1 volume 1 l. + 178 pp. + 6 ll. folio. 31 × 20. Original vellum binding.

Purchased 1929.

It seems not unlikely that the writer of this MS. was the Jan Pieter Rathlauw, who in 1747 divulged the secret of Roonhuysen's forceps. [Cf. Kedarnath Das. 'Obstetric forceps'. Calcutta 1929, pp. 119 et seq.].

Database description transcribed from S.A.J. Moorat, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts on Medicine and Science in the Wellcome Historical Medical Library (London: Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 1962-1973).

From the Berhard IV Collection.