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James Keill, George Cheyne, and Newtonian physiology, 1690–1740

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References

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  3. On this group see Anita Guerrini, “Newtonian Matter Theory, Chemistry, and Medicine, 1690–1713,” (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1983).

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  6. Biographical accounts of Pitcairne include Biographia Britannica, V, 3359–66; Dictionary of National Biography, XV, 1221–23; Dictionary of Scientific Biography, XI, 1–3. Pitcairne told Richard Mead that he and Gregory were lodging together in 1687. See Richard Mead, Of the Influence of the Sun and Moon on Humane Bodies (London: R. Wellington, 1712), pp. 42–43.

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  10. Newton, “De natura acidorum,” pp. 205 (translation, p. 209), 208 (translation, p. 212). For Newton's preoccupations during this period see R. S. Westfall, Never at Rest (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), pp. 524–531.

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  12. Pitcairne, Works, p. 193.

  13. Newton, “De natura acidorum,” p. 208 (translation, p. 211).

  14. Archibald Pitcairne, “Dissertatio de motu sanguinis per vasa minima,” translated in Works, p. 44.

  15. Ibid., pp. 43–44.

  16. Archibald Pitcairne, “Dissertation de motu quo cibi in ventriculo...,” translated as “A Dissertation upon the Motion which Reduces the Aliment in the Stomach to a Form proper for the Supply of the Blood,” in Works, pp. 102–134.

  17. Pitcairne, Works, pp. 51–52.

  18. Newton's letter in support of Gregory is printed in Correspondence, III, 154–155.

  19. George Cheyne, A New Theory of Continual Fevers, 3rd ed. (London: George Strahan, 1722), pp. 21–27. This edition does not differ substantially from the first, published in 1701.

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  20. Newton, Opticks, pp. 339–340; quotation from query 8, p. 340.

  21. Ibid., query 31, pp. 375–376.

  22. On James Keill see F. Valadez and C. D. O'Malley, “James Keill of Northampton, Physician, Anatomist, and Physiologist,” Med. Hist., 15 (1971), 317–335; on Cheyne see Henry Viets, “George Cheyne, 1673–1743,” Bull. Hist. Med., 23 (1949), 435–452.

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  23. On the Edinburgh debate see Cunningham, “Sydenham versus Newton.”

  24. Mead's works included A Mechanical Account of Poisons in Several Essays (London: J. R. for R. South, 1702). Cf. Geoffrey Bowles, “Physical, Human and Divine Attraction in the Life and Thought of George Cheyne,” Ann. Sci., 31 (1974), 481–482, who concludes that Cheyne could not have known of Newton's ideas on short-range forces before 1706.

  25. For John Keill see Biographia Britannica, IV, 2801–8; Dictionary of National Biography, X, 1198–99; Dictionary of Scientific Biography, VII, 275–277.

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  27. James Keill, The Anatomy of the Humane Body Abridg'd, 3rd ed. (London: R. Smith and W. Keble, 1708), pp. 36–37. The third edition was not substantially different from the second.

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  28. David Gregory, Memorandum, November 1706, British Library, Add. MS 29,243, f. 1r.

  29. John Keill, “Epistola ad ... Gulielmum Cockburn ... In qua Leges Attractionis aliaque Physices Principia traduntur,” Phil. Trans., 26 (1708), 110 (my translation). This paper was also translated in G. Hutton, G. Shaw, and R. Pearson, eds., Philosophical Transactions Abridged (London: C. and R. Baldwin, 1809), V, 417–424, but the editors omitted this final paragraph.

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  30. James Keill to Hans Sloane, 16 May 1708, British Library, Sloane MS 4041, ff. 140–141.

  31. James Keill, Essays upon Several Parts of the Animal Oecnomy, 2nd ed. (London: G. Strahan, 1717), p. 101. I have compared this edition to the first (An Account of Animal Secretion, the Quantity of Blood in the Humane Body, and Muscular Motion (London: G. Strahan, 1708)), and the cited passages are identical.

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  38. “Accounts of Books. II...,” Phil. Trans., 26 (1709), 324–331. Keill was elected to the Royal Society in 1712.

  39. James Keill turned to quantitative studies after the manner of Sanctorius, which he added to the 1717 Essays. He died in 1719.

  40. For example, Westfall, Never at Rest; Margaret C. Jacob, The Newtonians and the English Revolution, 1689–1720 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1976); John Redwood, Reason, Ridicule, and Religion (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976); J. E. McGuire, “Force, Active Principles, and Newton's Invisible Realm,” Ambix, 15 (1968), 154–208.

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  43. On this topic see Guerrini, “Newtonian Matter Theory,” chap. 2.

  44. Newton, Principia, p. 547; idem, “Hypothesis of Light,” in Correspondence, vol. 1 (1959), 362–392.

  45. David Gregory commented that “it is talked that Dr Cheyn has stoln a great deal of his book of Religion from Dr Bentleys Sermons preached at Mr Boyles Lecture”; W. G. Hiscock, ed., David Gregory, Isaac Newton and Their Circle (Oxford: for the Editor, 1937), p. 25.

  46. Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 639.

  47. Bowles, “Physical, Human, and Divine Attraction,” pp. 484–485; Hélène Metzger, Attraction universelle et religion naturelle chez quelques commentateurs anglais de Newton (Paris: Hermann, 1938), pt. 3, pp. 140–153 esp. pp. 146–147.

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  48. George Cheyne, Philosophical Principles of Religion: Natural and Revealed (London: George Strahan, 1715), “Preface to the Second Part,” n.p.

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  49. Newton, “Hypothesis of Light,” p. 364.

  50. But see J. E. McGuire and P. M. Rattansi, “Newton and the ‘Pipes of Pan’,” Notes Rec. Roy. Soc., 21 (1966), 108–143.

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  51. Cheyne, Philosophical Principles, “Preface to the Second Part”; Newton, Principia, pp. 398–400, esp. rule III.

  52. C. F. Mullett, ed., The Letters of Dr. George Cheyne to the Countess of Huntingdon (San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library, 1940), introduction, pp. v-vii.

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  53. George Cheyne, The English Malady (London: G. Strahan, 1733), pp. 325–352. Cf. Bowles, “Physical, Human, and Divine Attraction,” pp. 474–476. On the Methodist version see E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (1963; rpt. ed., Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968), pp. 402–403.

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  54. Quoted by Mullett, Letters of Cheyne, p. vii. Cf. Margaret C. Jacob, The Radical Enlightenment (London: Allen and Unwin, 1981), pp. 96–97.

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  55. George Cheyne, An Essay on Regimen, with Five Discourses... (London: C. Rivington, 1740), p. vi.

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  58. , pp. 2–3.

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  60. , p. 3.

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  61. , pp. 6–13; quotation on p. 6.

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Guerrini, A. James Keill, George Cheyne, and Newtonian physiology, 1690–1740. J Hist Biol 18, 247–266 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00120111

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