Beschreibung:

BORELLI, Giovanni Alfonso (1608-1679). De motu animalium . Rome: Angelo Bernabo, 1680-81.
BORELLI, Giovanni Alfonso (1608-1679). De motu animalium . Rome: Angelo Bernabo, 1680-81. 2 volumes, 4° (222 x 160mm). Large woodcut devices on titles, 18 engraved folding plates. (Small repair at top margin of first title, light scattered staining and faint spotting, wormhole and wormtrack in first half of vol. II with some loss, other wormhole in margins of second half.) Modern binding preserving old calf panels. Provenance : Gianni Caproni Milano (bookseller’s stamps on verso of titles). FIRST EDITION . Trained as a mathematician and physicist, Borelli was one of the founders of biomechanics, where the body is conceived as a machine whose movements and phenomena can be explained by the laws of physics. In this important treatise Borelli applies Galileo’s mechanics to the motion of animal limbs. The first volume is devoted to external motion, produced by the interaction of bones and muscle; the second volume considers internal motion, including circulation, respiration, secretion and nervous activity. ‘Borelli originated the neurogenic theory of the heart's action and first suggested that the circulation resembled a simple hydraulic system. He was the first to insist that the heart beat was a simple muscular contraction’ (Garrison-Morton). Cushing B499; Dibner Heralds of Science 190; Garrison-Morton 762; Grolier/Horblit 13; Heirs of Hippocrates 315; McGill/Wood 249; Nissen ZBI 465; NLM/Krivatsy 1578; Osler 2087; Norman 270.