Zoonomia: Volume 1
Or, the Laws of Organic Life

A classification of human diseases systematically linked to anatomy and physiology.

Erasmus Darwin (Author)

9781108005494, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 20 July 2009

616 pages
29.7 x 21 x 3.2 cm, 1.46 kg

Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802) is remembered not only as the grandfather of Charles but as a pioneering scientist in his own right. A friend and correspondent of Josiah Wedgwood, Joseph Priestley and Matthew Boulton, he practised medicine in Lichfield, but also wrote prolifically on scientific subjects. He organised the translation of Linnaeus from Latin into English prose, coining many plant names in the process, and also wrote a version in verse, The Loves of Plants. The aim of his Zoonomia, published in two volumes (1794–6), is to 'reduce the facts belonging to animal life into classes, orders, genera, and species; and by comparing them with each other, to unravel the theory of diseases'. The first volume describes human physiology, especially importance of motion, both voluntary and involuntary; the second is a detailed description of the symptoms of, and the cures for, diseases, categorised according to his physiological classes.

Preface
1. Of motion
2. Explanations and definitions
3. The motions of the retina demonstrated by experiments
4. Laws of animal causation
5. Of the four faculties of motions of the sensorium
6. Of the four classes of fibrous motions
7. Of irritative motions
8. Of sensitive motions
9. Of voluntary motions
10. Of associate motions
11. Additional observations on the sensorial powers
12. Of stimulus, sensorial exertion, and fibrous contraction
13. Of vegetable animation
14. Of the production of ideas
15. Of the classes of ideas
16. Of instinct
17. The catenation of animal motions
18. Of sleep
19. Of reverie
20. Of vertigo
21. Of drunkenness
22. Of propensity to motion
23. Of the circulatory system
24. Of the secretion of saliva, and of tears
25. Of the stomach and intestines
26. Of the capillary glands, and of the membranes
27. Of hæmorrhages
28. The paralysis of the lacteals
29. The retrograde motion of the absorbent vessels
30. The paralysis of the liver
31. Of temperaments
32. Diseases of irritation
33. Of sensation
34. Of volition
35. Of association
36. The periods of diseases
37. Of digestion, secretion, nutrition
38. Of the oxygenation of the blood in the lungs and placenta
39. Of generation
40. Of ocular spectra.

Subject Areas: Evolution [PSAJ]