A Dissertation on the Properties and Efficacy of the Lisbon Diet-Drink;

A Medicine, for Many Years, Successfully used in Portugal, in the Cure of Venereal Disease and Scurvy:

In which, its Comparative Excellence with Mercury and Guaiacum is Considered,

And the Particular Cases are Pointed out, where it Justly Claims the Preference to Both.

Together with Reflections on the Improper Use of Mercury; and the Manner of its Action on the Solids and Fluids.

To which is Annexed, an Appendix; with a Short State of Such Remarkable Venereal and Scorbutic Cases, as have been Successfully Trated by a Course of the Lisbon Diet-Drink.

By John Leake

Published by R. and J. Dodsley; J. Clarke; R. Griffiths; Z. Steward.

1760

Second edition.

Disbound.

vi, 90pp.

John Leake (1729–1792) was a man-midwife who founded the New Westminster Lying-in Hospital..

The Lisbon diet-drink is not itself described. Instead only its effects are detailed.

Gilbert Kennedy's Lisbon Diet Drink was an expensive tonic (half a guinea per bottle) containing sarsparilla, liquorice and guaiac wood.

Condition:

Good only as disbound. There is a tear to the title page (approx 2cm), as well as small ink and pencil inscriptions. The first and last couple of pages are slightly browned with some marks.