PREVENTION OF DROWNING

[Drowning]: Publicatie. [Incipit] De Raad der Gemeente van Amsterdam, zo veel mogelijk willende zorgen / dat aan het weldaadig oogmerk / om Menschen te behouden / voldaan worde / heeft / ten einde ongelukkige Drenkelingen, op de meest spoedige wijze / de noodige hulp tot redding te doen erlangen / noodig geördeeld: […]. Te Amsterdam, ter Stads-drukkerije, op ’t Rockin; en te bekomen bij Pieter Hendrik Dronsberg. [Gepubliceerd den 12den December 1796]. 

Rare copy of a Dutch broadside relating to the prevention of drowning. It renews earlier publications of 1769 and 1776, and includes detail on the obligations of innkeepers to provide help. The broadside also mentions aids/resources (hulpmiddelen) associated with the Society for the rescue of drowning people (Maatschappij tot Redding van Drenkelingen). The society, established in 1767 and still in existence today, is ‘the first organisation to have been involved in the resuscitation of drowning people’ (Heldring 2006, p. 3). 

Details

Broadside, approx. 54 x 44.5 cms. Printed on one side only. Two columns of text separated by one vertical rule. Adhered at upper margin to a cream card mount, approx. 64 x 49 cms.

Condition: one vertical fold line and three horizontal fold lines. Browning, spotting, and staining. 

Provenance:

1. Formerly in the collection of the Dreesmann-museum in Amsterdam, which was in existence between 1950 and 1959. Embossed stamp to lower right-hand corner of mount (Collectie Dreesmann).
2. Modern pencil note to lower left-hand corner of mount (A.d/36 No=23).

Bibliography

Not in OCLC, STCN, or archiven.nl. The text was known to J. A. Kool in 1854 and appears as no. 70 in his Geschiedkundige beschouwing van de Maatschappij tot redding van Drenkelingen te Amsterdam (Amsterdam: J de Ruijter, 1854), pp. 110-12. The present broadside also references the texts that form Kool’s appendices 13, 27, 56, and 69.  

Balt Heldring, ‘Brief History of Maatschappij tot Redding van Drenkelingen (The Society to Rescue People from Drowning)’, in Joost J. L. M. Bierens (ed.) Drowning: Prevention, Rescue, Treatment (Berlin: Springer, 2006), pp. 3–5.

Hosman, Harry, ‘De ondergang van het Dreesmann-museum en de slag om de zoutvaten’, 1 July 2018, last accessed 2 January 2024 via https://onsamsterdam.nl/de-ondergang-van-het-dreesmann-museum-en-de-slag-om-de-zoutvaten