Sensible Treatise on Healthful Living, Including the
Use of Elizabethan Trombone To Empty the Bowels

Stock #: ST10436           $9500
PJP Catalog 56.303

     ELYOT, THOMAS.
THE CASTELL OF HELTH. (London: Imprinted . . . by Thomas Powell,  [1560?])   146 x 102 mm. (5 3/4 x 4"). 7 p.l., 97 (i.e., 96), [1] leaves.       Modern retrospective flexible vellum, flat spine with titling in ink, modern endpapers.    Decorative and historiated woodcut initials, title page with full woodcut architectural border.    Title page with early ink ownership inscriptions of Hugh Eccles, William Eccles, John Eccles, and John Leech. Verso of last leaf with 18th or early 19th century ownership signature of Hill Benson. A few leaves with early ink marginalia.    First three and last seven leaves with skillful modern paper repairs strengthening small areas at corner or along top edge, two other early paper repairs to frayed corners (none with any loss of text), title page rather soiled and with many owners' names (see above), a few wax stains, rust spots, and instances of minor soiling, but still a pleasing copy, the text surprisingly fresh, the margins very ample, and the inoffensive binding clean, bright, and unworn.

In Hunt's words, this work "was a popular, sensible treatise on healthful living, with sound and practical advice on the recognition of the commoner symptoms of disease, as well as what to do about them." It provides the reader with suggestions for a proper diet (both to maintain health and ameliorate afflictions), discusses the curative properties of various herbs, and gives specific information about diagnoses, even down to the inspection of urine. According to Elyot, partridge is easier on the digestion than goose, and we should limit our intake of melons, cucumbers, and dates, whereas onions, eaten with meat, make it easier to sleep. Almost all of the early editions of this work are undated, leading to very unreliable guesses about priority. This work also has a tangential connection with the history of music because it contains one of the earliest references to the sackbutt, an early version of the trombone. The reference, however, is not to the sackbutt as an instrument for making sound, but rather as an appliance that, when blown through with sufficient energy, is capable of relieving problems of the bowels. Elyot says that "the entrayles [can be regulated] by blowynge . . . or playenge on the Shaulmes, or Sackbottes, or other lyke instrumentes whyche doo requyre moche wynde." A courtier in the service of Henry VIII, Sir Thomas Elyot (1490?-1546) was a close friend of Sir Thomas More and of Thomas Cromwell, both of whom met an unhappy political fate that Elyot, though endangered, managed to avoid. He authored books ranging from an English and Latin dictionary (still a treasury of 16th century usage), to his celebrated "Boke Named the Governor," which describes the ideal prince. STC gives the conjectural date of our edition of Elyot's "Castell" as 1560, though it is not clear why. Thomas Berthelet produced the first edition ca. 1537, and STC lists seven more printings between the first and ours, all of them issued by Berthelet; our printer, Thomas Powell, was Berthelet's nephew and his successor in the business, taking over in 1556 and perhaps managing it as early as 1548. All early printings are rare.

Hunt 155; Norman 705A (both citing other editions); STC 7650.