Analyse des eaux minérales, qui se trouvent au château royal de Marimont [sic] en Hainaut. Faite par les ordres & sous les auspices de Son Altesse Sérénissime Marie Élisabeth gouvernante générale des Pays-Bas autrichiens, &c. &c. [...]

8vo: [8]-194-[1] pp. (some foxing, sm. worm gallery on the 1st lvs).

19th-c. half sheep, flat spine gilt and ornated, blue sprinkled edges (rubbed).

Very rare original edition, published in 185 copies only, of this report on the curative virtues of the mineral waters discovered near the royal castle of Mariemont (Hainaut, destroyed 1794), with general considerations on hydrotherapy. Born in Huy, the author (1701-1769) was a physician in Liège and then in Leuven where he was professor of medicine. In 1740, in the hope of competing with Spa, Archduchess Marie-Elisabeth of Austria, governess general of the Netherlands, had commissioned De Villers and his Leuven colleagues Rega and Sassenus to analyse the waters of her castle at the Mariemont estate. Rega published a first report in Latin in 1740, and De Villers published his own in French, which was followed by a supplement in 1742.
Ref. STCV. - UniCat (5 copies). - Not in Blake, Morton. - Eloy - Dict. historique de la médecine ancienne et moderne, 2nd ed. Mons, 1778, pp. 535-538. - Florkin-Kelecom - Le monde médical liégeois avant la Révolution, I. Liège, 1996, pp. 344-346. - R. Wellens - "Une curieuse tentative de concurrence des eaux de Spa: la station thermale de Mariemont au XVIIIe siècle", in: La Vie wallonne, XXXIV, 1960, pp. 5-31.