pdf - Roger Gaskell Rare Books

First German edition, a translation of Experiments and observations on the
gastric juice, and the physiology of digestion (Plattsburgh, NY, 1833) by
Bernhard Luden ‘prakt. Arzt in New­York’.
‘The publication of Beaumont’s book created considerable interest among
European scientists and physicians, and in general was favourably received.
A German translation was published at Leipzig in 1834, and at about the
same time, the American edition was noted in the English, German, and
French literature. The most signiWcant response came from Germany, where
Beaumont’s experiments inXuenced various investigators, among them
Johannes Müller, Theodor Schwann, and J. B. Purkinje’. (George Rosen,
DSB 2:543).
15
BENZENBERG, Johann Friedrich (1777–1846)
Versuche über das Gesetz des Falls, über den Widerstand der
Luft und über die umdrehung der Erde, nebst der Geschichte aller
früheren Versuche von Galiläi bis auf Guglielmini.
Dortmund: bey den Gebrüden Mallinckrodt, 1804.
8vo, pp. xii, 432, 432a­h, [433]–542 [2].
Engraved titlepage (with illustration) and 8 plates, comprising a frontispiece,
unnumbered (conjugate with the engraved title and printed from
a single plate), and plates II–VIII printed on blue tinted paper.
202 x 125mm.
Binding: Contemporary boards. Sides
rubbed, spine ends and corners heavily
worn.
Provenance: Printed and MS shelf labels on
spine; contemporary signature and stamp
on title (undeciphered).
First edition. Honeyman 279.
Benzenberg’s experiments with falling spheres
demonstrated the rotation of the earth Wfty
years before Foucault with his pendulum. He
measured the displacement toward the east of
falling lead spheres in the tower of the Michaelis
Church in Hamburg in 1802, and in a mine shaft
in Schlebusch, 1804. (Bernhard Sticker, DSB
1:616–7.) The two sites are illustrated on the
titlepage opening, the church on the frontispiece
and the mine shaft on the titlepage.