List New York Antiquarian Book Fair - Antiquariat - Michael Kühn

was an Italian physiologist, physicist, and mathematician. He contributed to the modern principle of scientific
investigation by continuing Galileo's custom of testing hypotheses against observation. Trained in mathematics,
Borelli also made extensive studies of Jupiter's moons, the mechanics of animal locomotion and, in microscopy,
of the constituents of blood. He also used microscopy to investigate the stomatal movement of plants, and
undertook studies in medi-cine and geology. Borelli’s major scientific achievements are focused around his
investigation into biomechanics. This work originated with his studies of animals. His publications, De Motu
Animalium I and De Motu Animalium II, borrowing their title from the Aristotelian treatise, relate animals to
machines and utilize mathematics to prove his theories. The anatomists of the 17th century were the first to
suggest the contractile movement of muscles. Borelli, however, first suggested that ‘muscles do not exercise vital
movement otherwise than by contrac-ting.’ He was also the first to deny corpuscular influence on the movements
of muscles. This was proven through his scientific experiments demonstrating that living muscle did not
release corpuscles into water when cut. Borelli also recognized that forward motion entailed movement of a
body’s center of gravity forward, which was then followed by the swinging of its limbs in order to maintain balance.
His studies also extended beyond muscle and locomotion. In particular he likened the action of the heart to
that of a piston. For this to work properly he derived the idea that the arteries have to be elastic. For these
discoveries, Borelli is labeled as the father of modern bio-mechanics.- not in COPAC or OCLC; KVK: locates
only one similar volume at Anna Amalia Bibliothek/ Weimar.
cobalt
Schwachheim, Franz Rudolph von [Lange, Johann Joachim]. Inaugurale specimen physico-
chemicum, Cobalti Historiam producta et novas quasdam species exhibens. Quod auspicante
sanc-tissimo … pro gradu doctoris … ad XX. Augusti anno [1757] … defendet auctor
Franciscus Rudolphus Schwachheim.- Halae Magdeburgicae [Halle a. d. Saale]: typis Johann
Christian Hilliger, [1757]. 4° [210 x 172 mm] 48 pp., [4] Geheftet. $ 450.-
Dissertation written under the presidy of the mathematician and mineralogist Johann Joachim Lange (1699 –
1765), the medician Johann Juncker (1679-1759) and the physicist Johann Andreas Segner (1704-1777) at Halle
University. It seems fom the theme of the dissertation that Johann Joachim Lange, who was professor of philosophy
& mathematics at the University of Halle from 1723 until his death and who was also a corresponding
member of the Berlin Academy of Science, was responsible for the dissertation. Lange had prepared for printing
the Collec-tion catalog of August Heinrich Decker's mineral collection, consisting of over 6,000 specimens of
metals, ores, druses, fossils, gems, dried herbs, and preserved fish. In 1756 there was a dissertation on the nature
of stones [Ge-nesis Lapidem] under his presidy written by Mallickrodt. [see Schuh]. Cobalt is a chemical
element with symbol Co and atomic number 27. It is found naturally only in chemically combined form. The free
element, produced by reductive smelting, is a hard, lustrous, silver-gray metal. Cobalt-based blue pigments have
been used since ancient times for jewelry and paints, and to impart a distinctive blue tint to glass, but the color
was later thought by alchemists to be due to the known metal bismuth. Miners had long used the name kobold
ore (German for goblin ore) for some of the blue-pigment producing minerals; they were named because they
were poor in known metals and gave poisonous arsenic-containing fumes upon smelting. In 1735, such ores were
found to be reducible to a new metal (the first discovered since ancient times), and this was ultimately named for
the kobold. The first attempts at smelting these ores to produce metals such as copper or nickel failed, yielding
simply powder (cobalt(II) oxide) instead. Also, because the primary ores of cobalt always contain arsenic,
smelting the ore oxi-dized the arsenic content into the highly toxic and volatile arsenic oxide, which also
decreased the reputation of the ore for the miners. The Swedish chemist Georg Brandt (1694–1768) is credited
with discovering cobalt circa 1735, showing it to be a new previously unknown element different from bismuth
and other traditional metals, and calling it a new "semi-metal." He was able to show that compounds of cobalt
metal were the source of the blue color in glass, which previously had been attributed to the bismuth found with
cobalt. Cobalt became the first metal to be discovered since the pre-historical period, during which all the known
metals (iron, copper, silver, gold, zinc, mercury, tin, lead and bismuth) had no recorded discoverers. The first
mines for the production of smalt (cobalt glass powdered for use for pigment purposes in ceramics and painting)
in the 16th to 18th century were located in Norway, Sweden, Saxony and Hungary. [wikipedia.com for cobalt]
not in Schuh, not in Cole, not in Roy G. Neville Coll., not in Hirsch/H. KVK: Berlin, Göttingen, Jena, Halle;
COPAC: BL London; OCLC: Phil./ College of Physicians, NLM Bethesda
Steinbuch, Johann Georg. Analecten neuer Beobachtungen und Untersuchungen für die Naturkunde.
Mit zwei Kupfern.- Fürth: im Bureau für Litteratur, 1802. 8°. VII, 135 pp., [1] with
two plates by J. F. Volkart after Steinbuch. Blue plain papercard boards, handwritten label,
dedication on front-fly. Little waterstained in upper part. Uncut copy. $ 600.-