Notes of the materia medica lectures of Dr Francis Home (1719-1813) given at Edinburgh University, where he held the post of Professor of Materia Medica, and was the first person to do so.
The topics covered in the lectures according to the index are as follows: general remarks, classification, aliment, alimentary functions, nutrition, evacuantia, errhines-sternutatories, expectorantia, sialogoga, emmenagoga, cathartics, emetics, bleeding, diuretics, diaphoretics & sudorifics, attenuants, lime water, inspissants, deobstruents, antacids & demulients, antiseptics, humetantia, emollientia, corroborantia, astringents, tonics, air, balsamica, stimulantia, sea-salt, antimony, electricity, passions, antispasmodica, animal heat, calefacientia, anodyne, narcotics, topica interna, topica externa, discutients, issues, caustics, consolidantia, suppuration, digestion, carminatives, lithontriptica, anthelmentics, of specifics, materia medica composita sive pharmacia, cure of disease in general, and conclusion.
A note has been made in the back cover entitled 'cases of fasting' seemingly unrelated to Home's lecture notes. These notes include reference to a woman in 1347 adjudged to fast for 40 days without meat or drink; a man who wilfully fasted for 14 days being melancholic, a Scotchman who abstained from meat for 30 or 40 days; two Englishwomen, one who fasted for 28 years the other 40; a woman who lived a year without meat or drink in 1669. In each case there is reference to the source of the story.
The volume bears the bookplate of the Radford Library, Saint Mary's Hospital, Manchester, which also indicates that it was allocated the reference number Q136 viz. their 1877 catalogue. The volume has since been referenced H6 H53 as part of an alternative system. An inscription in the front reads 'E Libris R Dobson MD', the volume bears the original pagination pp.1-359, writing is on both the recto and verso and there is an index in the rear.