( 262 ) 

 THOMAS MUFFETT.* 



BY 



W. H. MULLENS, M.A., LL.M., F.L.S. 

 [Plate 4.] 



Most of the early text-books on British ornithology are 

 comparatively well known, and the more important of 

 them have either been reprinted or so extensively quoted 

 in modern works that the information they contain is 

 easily accessible to the student and inquirer. There exist 

 however some considerable and important accounts of 

 the avifauna of this country in bygone times, hidden 

 away in various books, which, from their titles, would 

 seem to have little or no connexion with that subject, 

 and which from their rarity are almost unknown to the 

 general reader. Such a one is Healths Improvement, the 

 work of a famous old physician named Thomas Muffett ; 

 its full title and collation being as follows : — 



Healths Improvement :/ or,/ Rules/ Comprising and 

 Discovering/ The Nature, Method, and Manner of/ Pre- 

 paring all sorts of/ Food/ Used in this Xation. /Written 

 by that ever Famous/ Thomas Muffett, /Doctor in 

 Physick :/ Corrected and Enlarged/ by/ Christopher 

 Bennet,/ Doctor in Physick, and Fellow^ of the/ Colledg 

 of Physitians in London./ London,/ Printed by Tho : 

 Newcomb for Samuel Thomson, at the/ sign of the 

 white Horse in Pauls Churchyard, 1655. 



1 vol. 4to., Collation : pp. 8, + pp. 2 un, h- pp. 296. 



Thomas Muffett died in 1604, and the above work, as 

 wiU be observed from the title, was not pubHshed till 

 some years afterwards, when it was edited with corrections 

 and additions by another eminent physician, Christopher 

 Bennet (1617-55). The original work is generally ascribed 

 to the year 1595, and how much Bennet added to it is 

 uncertain, but in all probability that portion of the book 



* This article first appeared as one of the " Occasional Publications " 

 of the Hastings and St. Leonards Natural History Society, and it is here 

 reprinted with the illustrations by kind permission of the author and 

 the society. — Eds. 



