Blackwell Rare books - sciences

Page 66

blackwell rare books

architects, engineers and surveyors to whom the work is addressed. The methods used involve the manipulation of geometrical shapes such as triangles, rectangles and circles. Geometrical constructions were used, in effect, as a kind of mechanical calculator, circumventing the need to manipulate numerical quantities directly. Rudd was in the royal service as an engineer for fortifications. William Jones (1675-1749), tutor to the Earl of Macclesfield, lived at Shirburn Castle and left his large collection of scientific books and manuscripts to the Macclesfield family (the present work was formerly in a tract volume which included a rare Galileianum and another work: the tract volumes in that library, which were bound in the eighteenth century, were typically cropped). Jones is known as the inventor of the symbol ‘π’ in his Synopsis palmariorum matheseos (1706) and was also the editor and publisher of Newton’s Analysis per quantitatum series (1711). There was another issue of the book in the same year with a different printer and a minor variation in the title.

121. Santorio (Santorio) De statica medicina et de responsione ad staticomasticem, ars ... aphorismorum sectionibus octo comprehensa. The Hague: A. Vlacq, 1657, with full-page woodcut on p. [xx], some headlines shaved, pp. [xx], 135, [3, blank], 12mo, contemporary English sheep, from the Macclesfield Library, with the usual blind£350 stamps and bookplates, good (Krivatsy 10238) A very satisfactory copy of an early edition of a medical classic. De statica medicina ‘dazzled its contemporaries’ ( DSB ). It had immediate, widespread and long-lasting influence, was translated into the major European languages, and has been in print more or less continuously ever since. The book’s reputation suffered in the nineteenth century, but was the subject of important studies in the twentieth. The latest edition was published in 2001. ‘Through most of the 17th and 18th centuries Santorio’s name was linked with that of Harvey as the greatest figure in physiology and experimental medicine because of his introduction of precision instruments for quantitative studies’ (G-M). Besides the scientific importance of the book, there is considerable human interest in the extraordinary manner in which Santorio achieved the results recorded here. He spent 30 years living in the elaborate weighing machine which he constructed for the purpose, performing all the bodily functions, including venery, by which body weight could be influenced.

122. Santorio (Santorio) De medicina statica aphorismi. Commentaria, notasque addidit A.C. Lorry. Paris: P.G. Cavelier, 1770, FIRST EDITION of Lorry’s recension, commentary and notes, with one engraved plate, clean tear in A4 without loss, pp. [iv], xxxvi, 395, 12mo, original French mottled calf, spine gilt, red lettering piece, corners slightly worn, very good (Garrison-Morton 573 for the first edition, 1614, a famous rarity) £250 ‘Santorio’s great achievement was the introduction of quantitative experimentation into biological science. Undoubtedly inspired by Galileo, Santorio opened the way to a mathematical and experimental analysis of physiological and pathological phenomena’ ( DSB ).

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