Rare second(?) edition (first 1609) of an influential work on chemical medicines and the methods of preparing them. 
 
Crollius (1580-1609) was a Paracelsian physician, but unlike most Paracelsians he had a thorough university education, studying in Marburg, Heidelberg, Strassburg, and Geneva. He travelled about Eastern Europe, but finally settled in Prague, where he was frequently consulted by Emperor Rudolf II. 
 
The Basilica chymica was the only work he wrote, published at the end of his life (or indeed posthumously). It went through some 18 editions and had considerable influence on 17th-century medicine and chemistry. 
 
Divided into three sections it opens with a thorough introduction, followed by the Basilica chymica proper, and finally a section on signatures, with a separate part title. 
 
"Oswald Crollius is one of the first chemical writers to emphasize the real chemical products of a reaction— rather than the distillate or the quintessence— as the desired substances to be collected" (Debus).