HALES, STEPHEN. 1677-1761.


Vegetable Staticks: Or, An Account of some Experiments on the Sap in Vegetables. London: W. & J. Innys and T. Woodward, 1727. 8vo (193 x 115 mm). 19 engraved plates. Contemporary calf. Top joint cracking, corners bumped, endpapers browning. FIRST EDITION of this scarce volume on the physiology of plants and hemodynamics. "... I made several hemostatic experiments on dogs ..." he writes in the preface, "and six years afterwards repeated the same on horses and other animals, on order to find out the real force of blood in the arteries." Hales was a clergyman, who wrote on a variety of fields, including botany, chemistry, and physiology. This, his best-known work, was the first publication to chronicle the measurement of blood pressure. Henrey 777; Norman 970; Osler 1081; PMM 189a; Waller 11527; Wellcome III, p 194.