1814, Chaumeton, Flore médicale illustrée, 6 vols.

Condition : good, slightly rubbed and scuffed, corners slightly bumped, vol. 2 with two small tears at front and bottom of spine, vol. 1, 4 and 6 inner hinges with minor tears, pencil notes to each page of text, partially lightly browned with scattered foxing, about 100 pages with rather faint traces of moisture, 3 plates with small traces of worm. Overall a good copy.
Illustrations : 360 engraved plates in colour.
Volumes : 6 volumes.
Binding : contemporary half leather, spines decorated with gilt fleurons.
Format : In-8.
Pages : about 1600 pp.
Publisher : Paris, Panckoucke.
Date : 1814 - 1818.

The Medical Flora is the flora of the Dictionary of Medical Sciences, a work in sixty volumes, published from 1812 to 1822 by the same publisher, Charles-Louis-Fleury Joseph Panckoucke. It deals with each of the 350 plants that are the subject of an entry in the Dictionary, and adopts the alphabetical classification. With its plates and its more developed botanical description, it completes the Dictionary which insists more on the therapeutic aspects of the plants, also dealt with in the Flora. Subscribers to the Dictionnaire benefited from a preferential rate for the acquisition of the Flore, the first edition of which appeared in book form from 1814 to 1820. Both titles were very successful.
François-Pierre Chaumeton (1775-1819), a physician and botanist, actively participated in the Dictionnaire des sciences médicales, to which he contributed numerous articles, and even edited it for a time. But his real passion was botany, that "amiable science" as he put it. He was the initiator and main figure of the Flore, for which he signed the "Preliminary Discourse". It is his major work. A naturalist and botanist, Jean-Louis-Marie Poiret (1755-1834), and a military doctor, Joseph Tyrbas de Chamberet (1779-1870), joined in the writing of the work from the third volume onwards, following health problems encountered by Chaumeton.
The various names of the plant are given opposite the plates, in a large number of languages, most of them European but also sometimes more unusual, such as Chinese, Hindi, Malay, etc. This is followed by a detailed botanical description, the physical qualities and medicinal properties, and possibly a mention of uses other than medical. Finally, the text ends with useful bibliographical references, and explanations and legends of the plate. The plates systematically show, at the bottom of an overall or partial representation (with foliage, flowers, possibly roots), the intimate morphology of the plant with details of the stamens, pistils and ovaries. The fruits are also dissected to reveal the seeds in cross-section.
Two talented illustrators, both artistic and botanical, are responsible for the drawing of the plates. Ernestine Panckoucke (1784-1860), wife of the editor of La Flore, was a pupil of the great flower painter Gérard Van Spaendonck and especially of Pierre-Joseph Redouté. A painter of flowers, with a predilection for watercolours, she exercised her talent for botanical drawing here. However, her participation was very modest (only about twenty plates out of more than 350) since almost all the illustrations are by Pierre-Jean-François Turpin (1775-1840), a botanist and remarkable draughtsman who produced many botanical illustrations, including those for a Parisian Flora.