Avis au sexe sur les cancers au sein ou l'art de les guérir par un caustique nouveau

First edition.

Marbled paper boards, smooth spine, gilt lettered red morocco title-label lengthwise. Slightly sunned boards, some minor restorations to title page.

Extremely rare essay on a so-called “cure” for breast cancer, published during the French Revolution.

The pamphlet addressed directly to female patients is the work of a certain Dorez “former Surgeon of Hôpital-Militaire du Cap François, island of Saint-Domingue; Master in Surgery at Saini-Lome in Paris and for the Suburbs of said Paris; Master in Surgery of the Community of Villenaux & Master, Apothecary at the College of Pharmacy of Paris”. It extols the merits of his “disorganizing epitheme” supposed to be slowing tumor progression, and is followed by thirty pages of positive reviews from cured patients, and other stories of full recoveries. This miracle poultice was heavily criticized by the Gazette de Santé, which fought against charlatanism and exposed false remedies (“Dorez: l'épithème désorganisant”, in Daniel Droixhe, Les Charlatans du cancer, 2018).
OCLC lists only 3 copies in libraries (BnF, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, University of Minnesota).
Provenance: Mad[emoiselle] de Chazal, manuscript ex-libris on title page.