Medicina Statica: Being the Aphorisms of Sanctorius, Translated into English with large Explanations by QUINCY, John - 1718

London: William Newton, 1718. Leather bound. Very good. lvi, 312 p. 20 cm full leather with blank impressing done in Cambridge style. Includes engraved frontispiece and fold-out diagram page at rear. Spine ends a little chipped and corners worn. Dents in fore-edges. Ink notations front endpapers, frontispiece and title page. Hole in top corner of frontispiece page. Foxing and staining, mainly to first pages, but also pp. 3-31. Remaining pages clear and unmarked.

Title continues: "Wherein is given A Mechanical Account of the Animal Aeconomy, and of the Efficacy of the Non-Naturals, either in bringing about or removing its Disorders: Also with an Introduction Concerning Mechanical Knowledge, and the Grounds of Certainty in Physick." John Quincy (d. 1722) was an English apothecary known as a medical writer. He received the degree of M.D. from the University of Edinburgh for this Medicina Statica, a translation of the Aphorisms of Sanctorius. Sanctorius was a 17th-century professor at Padua who performed experiments in temperature, respiration, and weight. For a period of 30 years, Sanctorius weighed himself, everything he ate and drank, and his urine and feces. He compared the weight of what he had eaten to that of his waste products, the latter being considerably smaller. His findings had little scientific value, but he is still celebrated for his empirical methodology. The frontispiece of this text shows Sanctorius in his famous "weighing chair," which he constructed and used for his experiments.