DENMARK. — HANDWRITTEN MEDICAL PRESCRIPTION BY THE KING OF D - Lot 99

DENMARK. — HANDWRITTEN MEDICAL PRESCRIPTION BY THE KING OF DENMARK’S PHYSICIAN FOR THE BARONESS OF ELSLOE. 18th century. A 2-page folio manuscript on laid paper, entirely handwritten in brown ink, with an old inscription on the first page: “Prescription from the King of Denmark’s Physician for Madame the Baroness of Elsloo.” Old handwritten provenance note indicating it was from the collection of Baron Hamilton (Huy). Some water stains and old marginal damage, with no significant damage to the text. A rare medical prescription written for a member of the Danish nobility, containing a detailed prescription in pharmaceutical Latin, followed by therapeutic instructions in French. The first page lists the ingredients according to the medical practice of the time: medicinal plants, plant-based drugs, and galenic preparations, with doses expressed in ounces, drachmas, and scruples. The text is followed by a prescription in French stating, in particular: “...prescription from the King of Denmark’s physician to make absinthe wine for the Baroness of Elsloo...” The patient is to drink one glass of this preparation daily, taken before meals, while a second prescription recommends a refreshing beverage and various remedies to be continued for several days. Taken together, these documents provide a particularly interesting insight into 18th-century aristocratic medicine, where compounded prescriptions combined scholarly pharmacopoeia, wine-based preparations, and botanical therapies. The use of absinthe wine—which was widely used as a digestive tonic and stimulant before the controversies of the 19th century—illustrates the medicinal uses of absinthe long before it became popular as a beverage. A document of genuine interest for the history of medicine, pharmacy, and relations among European courts, preserved with an early attribution to the physician to the King of Denmark and an identified historical provenance.

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