Thomas and Rebecca Vaughan's Aqua Vitæ: Non Vitis (British Library MS, Sloane 1741)

As a record of the work of a female alchemist and as an advance in medicine away from Galenic humors treatments, this notebook will interest historians of science and medicine as well as women's studies specialists. Nearly fifty experiments translated here relate to medical recipes, chemical rather than herbal in nature. Never translated into English or published as a whole before, this diplomatic edition offers the original Latin text and a facing-page translation, a substantial seventy-page introduction, plus notes, glossary, and bibliography. In the early 1650s, the Vaughans were part of a research collegium formed with Thomas Henshaw, a future founder of the Royal Society. The notebook also portrays a truly companionate marriage, containing memorials and anecdotes of Rebecca which Thomas included following her early death, some of which describe communications from her from beyond the grave.

Edited and translated by Donald R. Dickson