Author: PIVATI, GIOVANNI FRANCESCO
Title: Riflessioni fisiche sopra la medicina elettrica.
Description: In Venezia, Presso Benedetto Milocco, si vendono da Lorenzo Baseggio in Campo a S. Bartolommeo, 1749. 4to. Title in red and black. W. woodc. vign. on title. Some woodc. head- and tailpieces and woodc. initials. Contemp. limp paper brds., thong laced. [A6, B-X4]. (IV, 166, II (Blank) pp. (Large paper copy; upper paste down and A1 (half title) and A2 (Printed title) a vague waterspot.). (Throughout some light soiling in blank (inner) margins). Bakken Museum cat., p. 96: Ronalds, p. 400: Rowbottom/Susskind, Electricity and medicine, p. 15 - 30, Pivati on p. 18: 'The discovery of the Leyden jar provided a great stimulus to the medical application of electricity. [Jallabert discovered stimulation of muscle by electricity and achieved success in the treatment of paralysis, Morand and Nollet followed suit] ... In the meantime accounts of wonderful cures wrought by electricity in Italy were being widely circulated. In 1747 Giovanni Francesco Pivati (1689 -1764) of Venice claimed that if volatile drugs, such as balsam of Peru, were hermetically sealed in the glass cylinder of an electrical machine and the machine was excited, the smell would become aparent in the room and could be even transmitted to another room by a wire. ... on 31 March 1748, a report from Win(c)kler at Leipzig supporting Pivati's claim was read at a meeting of the Royal Society in London. Watson in London, Jallabert in Geneva and Nollet in Paris all had been unable to repeat the experiment of transmitting odours and medicinal virtues by electricity. ... The false claims of Pivati and his followers gave rise to considerable skepticism concerning the value of electrical treatment, but in the 1750s reports of trials from various countries became more frequent.': Mottelay, p. 185/6: The "Transudation" and its medical effects 'could not ... be verified, even with the directions asked of and given by Prof. Winckler, when very careful and exhaustive experiments were made, on the 12th of June, 1751, at the house of Dr. Watson, in presence of the president and other officers as well as friends of the Royal Society.': Wellcome IV, 396: Blake, p. 354:

Keywords: W38Folio behandelen