List New York Antiquarian Book Fair - Antiquariat - Michael Kühn

Sexuality of plants before Linnaeus – a letter to Leibniz
Burckhard, Johann Heinrich. Epistola ad illustrem et excellentissimum virum dominum
Godofredum Guilielmum Leibnitium [Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz] Polyhistorem Consummatissimum
Qua Characterem Plantarum Naturalem Nec A Radicibus, Nec Ab Aliis Plantarum
Partibus Minus Essentialibus, Pluribus Discriminandi Capitibus Constitutis, Peti Posse
Ostendit Simulque In Comparationem Plantarum Quam Partes Earum Genita-les Suppeditant
Paucis Inquirit Jo. Henr. Burckhard Med. Doct., cum Lavrentii Heisteri [Lorenz Heister]
Praefatione ,… . Helmstedt: ex Officina Weygandiana, 1750. 8° [186 x 120 mm] 159 pp., [1],
[16, Index] with 2 coloured plates. Contemporary half calf, marbled boards, hinges crac-ked.
Uncut copy, else good. $ 2000.-
Rare edition, first published in 1702 [32 pp.], this second edition enlarged with a preface by Lorenz Heister [pp.
1-98]. The german doctor Johann Heinrich Burkhard at Wolfenbuttel proposed in 1702 in a letter to G. W. Leibniz
that the number and arrangement of the stamens and the pistils be used as the basis of an artificial system of
plants. Linnaeus did not know about Burkhard' s ideas. The preface is by Lorenz Heister (1683 - 1758), who in
1720 was appointed professor of anatomy and surgery at Helmstädt, were his teaching duties changed several
times. In 1730 he was charged with the teaching of theoretical medicine and botany, and in 1740, upon the death
of Brandanus Meibom (1678-1740), with the teaching of practical medicine and botany. He remained in Helmstädt
for the rest of his life. His botanical garden in Helmstädt soon became one of the most beautiful in
Germany. In 1741 Heister published a study on Linné’s new sexual system, where he considers Linnæus's sexual
method totally useless, because it would be too difficult to discern and count the stamens. Not only the cryptogames
but also a lot of other plants have genital organs which cannot be discerned by the naked eye and often the
number of the stamens is not constant. Some of his criticism is here again published.- Johann Heinrich Burckhardt
(1676 Sulzbach - 1738 Wolfenbüttel), Botaniker. Burckhardt studierte Medizin (1700 Dr. med.) und wurde
Stadtphysikus zu Wolfenbüttel. Er hinterließ unter anderem eine große Bibliothek und ein vortreffliches Münzkabinett.
In einem Brief an Leibniz (1702) streifte er den Gedanken, auf den Sexualorganen der Pflanzen ein
System zu errichten. Man kann ihn und Leibniz vielleicht als Vorläufer Linnés auffassen, wenn auch bis zu einem
brauchbaren System noch ein weiter Schritt zu gehen war. Burckhardt selber ging ihn nicht. Zudem war damals
die Sexualität der Pflanzen durchaus nicht bewiesen. Linnés Autorschaft bleibt hierdurch unberührt.- NDB
III,40; Pritzel 1378; not in Stafleu/Cowan; OCLC: Academy of National Science; New York Botanical; Kenneth
Spencer Research; Univ. Minnesota.
Astronomy in Colonial India
Campigneulles, V. de. Observations taken at Dumraon, Behar, India during the eclipse of the
22nd January 1898, by a party of Jesuit fathers of the western Bengal mission. By Rev. V. De
Campigneulles. London; New York; Bombay: Longmans, Green, and co, 1899. 4° [260 x 190
mm] X, 104 pp. with 14 pl. (1 fold.), mainly after photographs. Original pebbled cloth. Spotting
throughout. Front-fly with a hand-drawing of the eclipse [by the author ?], and with
printed dedication. Ownership inscription: C. W. Hodson, 1899. $ 1800.-
First edition, uncommon. Report of the total sun eclipse of 1898 under the leadership of the Jesuit Campigneulles.
He reported that the ecplipse lasted 99 seconds, recorded solar prominences, and inner and outer corona.
The Jesuit Fathers of Bengal, who directed two important educational establishments and possessed a Solar
Obser-vatory, organized the study and research of the eclipse to solve some problems of solar physics under the
leadership of Rev. C. De Clippeleir, S.J., Director of the St. Xavier's Solar Observatory. The observatory was
established when Tacchini observed the transit of the venus in 1874. The party had with them two teles-copes,
for direct ocular observations and five photographic apparatus; three for photographs of the corona, and two for
spectroscopic photography. One of the latter was a prismatic camera, the other had a concave two-inch grating.
Moreover, a time-registering apparatus, built on the principle of Father Secchi's Meteor graph, recorded with
great exactitude the exact moment of each exposure. The usual fittings for meteorological and photometric
records, sketches of the corona and star observations were exclusive to their own means.- Lit.: Biswas in: Indian
J. History Science 29 (1994), 77-88.