Boyle Papers Volume 17

Extent: 167 folios
Date: Late 17th century
Description: Folio-size volume; foliated September 1986, replacing earlier erratic pagination; 19th-century contents leaf: Physiology
Physical description: Manuscript
Note: The final page, fol. 167v, is wholly blank and has been omitted. There is a cancelled pagination throughout, which should be ignored. There is an unfoliated title-page ('Medica Prescripta') before fol. 1. There is no fol. 44.'Fols.' 51-8 are paginated, not foliated (i.e., the openings comprise: [pp.] 51, 52-53, 54-55, 56-57, 58-59).

Fols. 1-36 (36 leaves): 'Medica Praescripta Communicata R.B.'
Fols. 37-8 (2 leaves): Three medicines for eyesight, one 'A Medicine for clearing of the eye-sight found out by Dr. Purlow Sometime Bishop of Hull and Suffragan of York who at the age of 125 years was able to read any Print without Spectacles which att the age of 50 he could not do'.
Fol. 39 (1 leaf): Paper concerning worm voided by child.
Fol. 40 (1 leaf): Section of text concerning reception of doctrine of circulation of blood.
Fols. 41-2 (2 leaves): Miscellaneous recipes, medical memoranda, etc.
Fols. 43-5 (3 leaves): Notes on accounts of the transmutation of metals.
Fols. 46-50 (5 leaves): Miscellaneous recipes, together with fragment of appendix to Final Causes.
Fols. 51-9 (5 leaves): Letter from unknown correspondent in Bordeaux giving account of local sorcery case involving a lady called Segur.
Fol. 60 (1 leaf): 'Some Notable Parnasian Observations'.
Fols. 61-2 (2 leaves): Note on strange phenomena of vitiated sight.
Fol. 63 (1 leaf): Notes on how the human body is like an engine.
Fol. 64 (1 leaf): Extract from Fabricius on dropsy.
Fols. 65-6 (2 leaves): MS version of part of Colours.
Fol. 67 (1 leaf): Medicinal recipe.
Fols. 68-70 (3 leaves): MS version of parts of Usefulness, II, sect. 1.
Fols. 71-4 (4 leaves): MS versions of two sections of text of Usefulness, II, sect. 2.
Fols. 75-107 (33 leaves): MS version of Usefulness, sect. 1.
Fols. 108-11 (4 leaves): MS version of part of Usefulness, II, sect. 1.
Fols. 112-13 (2 leaves): MS version of part of Usefulness, II, sect. 1.
Fols. 114-15 (2 leaves): MS version of part of Ex.& Obs. Physicae.
Fols. 116-25 (10 leaves): Transcript of letters from Malpighi to Spon.
Fols. 126-41 (16 leaves): Unpublished Latin translation of 'Vitiated Sight' (Final Causes).
Fols. 142-4 (3 leaves): Italian extract on 'l'Occhio della Mosca'.
Fol. 145 (1 leaf): 'About Barnacles'.
Fol. 146 (1 leaf): Account of 'a pious and eminent Divine' suffering from 'a Distemper of his eyes that is very extraordinary'.
Fols. 147-63 (18 leaves): 'The last bundle of Physiological Memorandums', [Workdiary 28, part 1].
Fol. 164 (1 leaf): List of notes and headings for a scientific/medical work.
Fols. 165-7 (3 leaves): Notes on proposition 'That Beasts may be but Engines'