Physick for families. Or, The new, safe and powerful way of physick, upon constant proof established; enabling every one, at sea or land, by the medicines herein mentioned, to cure themselves, their friends and relations, in all distempers and diseases. Without any the trouble, hazzard, pain or danger of purgers, vomiters, bleedings, issues, glisters, blisters, opium, antimony and quicksilver, so full of perplexity in sickness. By William Walwyn physitian.
London: J.R. and are to be sold by the author, 1696. Lacking a frontispiece A1 portrait of William Walwyn engraved by R. White. supplied with a photocopy. Third edition, the first was printed in 1674. . This copy is bound in a red textured cloth with “Birmingham Medical Institute” on the spine as well as “Walwyn’s Physic-1696.”. William Walwyn, the son of Robert Walwyn, was born in Newland, Worcestershire, 1600. As a young man he was apprenticed to a silkman in Paternoster Row. Later he started his own business and joined the Merchant Adventurers Company. As a Puritan, Walwyn supported the Parliamentary army during the Civil War. In 1645 he published a pamphlet, England’s Lamentable Slavery. In 1646 Walwyn joined with John Lilburne, and John Wildman to form a new political party called the Levellers.
Their political programme included: voting rights for all adult males, annual elections, complete religious freedom, an end to the censorship of books and newspapers, the abolition of the monarchy and the House of Lords, trial by jury, an end to taxation of people earning less than £30 a year and a maximum interest rate of 6%. Walwyn became the leader of the Levellers in London and in September 1647 helped organize a petition demanding male suffrage. Walwyn, along with John Lilburne and Richard Overton, published An Agreement of the People. When the reforms were opposed by officers in the New Model Army, Walwyn called for the soldiers to revolt. On 28th March 1649, Walwyn was arrested and charged with advocating communism. After being brought before the Council of State he was sent to the Tower of London.
On his release The Leveller leaders were released from prison in November 1649 following Lilburne’s trial and acquittal. Walwyn pledged his loyalty to the Commonwealth by taking the Oath of Engagement and returned to quiet family life at his home in Moorfields. He became interested in medicine and began practicing as a physician during the 1650s, publishing several medical tracts and handbooks. He died in January 1681.
Walwyn wrote a large number of pamphlets arguing for religious toleration. His best known work included The Fountain of Slander Discovered(1649), Counterfeit Preaching (1649) and Just Defence(1649). William Walwyn died in 1681. Two Copies in N.America: U.S. National Library of Medicine , University of Minnesota ,UCLA
Other copies I have located are at British Library and University of Birmingham ( which is this copy and was sold by them)
Wing (2nd ed.), W690. Item #890
Price: $2,500.00