An Account of Some Books

To the number of the Letter of the Alphabet the word begins with, add 7. Example. Bear is the word for October, and F the sixth Letter: Wherefore the Sun enters into the 8th Sign, to wit, Scorpio, on the 13th of October. An Account of some Books. I. PETRI LAMBECHII LIB. PRIMUS PRODROMI HISTORIÆ LITERARIIÆ, &c. The Author of this Book is now the Historiographer and Library-keeper to the Emperour. He publish'd this Volume some few years ago at Hamburgh, the place of his Birth, (whence an Exemplar was but lately sent to the Publisher.) He was excited to this Work by the complaint made by the illustrious Lord Verulam, (Lib. 2. cap. 4. de Augm. Scientiarum) of the want of a compleat History of Learning, that might give a satisfactory Account of the Rise, Progress, Transmigrations, Interruptions, Declinations, and Restaurations of all kind of Learning, Sciences, Arts, and Inventions; together with the occasion of Inventions through all Arts; the method of teaching, and the manner of improving and advancing them: Adding the various Sects, and the most famous Controversies among the Learned; the Encouragements they received; the chief Writings they composed; their Schools, Academies, Societies, Colleges, Successions, Orders, and whatever belongs to the state of Learning. This grand Desideratum our Author undertakes to supply the World with, and in order thereunto, hath given us the first Book of the Prodromus of this History, and with it the four first Chapters of the Second Book, together with an Appendix, containing a Summary of the chief Persons and Things he intends more fully and accurately to treat of in the remaining 32 Chapters, designed for the same second Book: To which, he subjoins two Tables of Universal Chronography, in the first whereof he exhibits the succession of all Ages from the Creation of the World to the beginning of the common Christian Account; in the other, a Continuation of them from the beginning of the said Account unto this present Age: In which Tables he gives a general Idea of the Connexion of all Ages, as they are computed in respect of the Vulgar Vulgar Christian account, either by ascending to the Creation of the World, or by descending to our Age: He also for the sake of this Work acquaints the Reader, that he betook himself to the Explication and Caution of the Bibliotheca Chronologica Classicorum Authorum Johannis Jacobi Frisii Tigurini; substituting, as he affirms, a true Calculation in the place of the false one; reducing the Authors, there enumerated, to the true time of their Age, distinguishing what is supposititious from genuine, and adding many things that were unhappily omitted. Which done, he saith, he proceeded from this Account of the Succession of the illustrious Writers, to the History of the Origin, Increase, Nature, and Constitution of all Professions, Sciences, and Arts, chusing the Eight Books of Polydore Virgil de rerum Inventoribus; and Diogenes Laertius, De Vitis, & Dogmatibus veteris Graecae Philosophorum; as also, the Eight Books of Johannes Midden-Dorpius De Celebritus Universi Orbis Academici. He excuseth himself for having made no further progress in this desirable Work, alleging the difficulty and trouble of the Undertaking, the unavoidable interruptions he hath met with, and the narrowness of a private Man's fortune to carry on so chargeable an Attempt, requiring a Royal encouragement and assistance. II. Thomae Cornelii Consentini Progymnasmata Physica. This Author, a Friend to the Cartesian Philosophy, entertains the Curious in this Book with seven Exercitations; viz. 1. De Ratione Philosophandi: Wherein the genuine Students of Natural Philosophy he first requires the study of Mathematicks, to accustom their Minds to a fixed Attention, and to strict Reasoning; and next directs them to study Nature itself, and to labour after a true History of Nature: recommending lastly and particularly the use of Chemistry, as an excellent key to open her Treasures, and the study of Mechanical Principles, as nearly allied to those of Nature. 2. *De Rerum Naturalium Initio*: Where he mentions the several Hypotheses and Principles of Philosophers, and approves of the Cartesian, esteeming, that none ever looked so like truth, as those; though he thinks them defective in this, that how wellsoever they shew the production of things out of Matter variously modified, yet they seem not to have sufficiently accounted for the efficient power thereof. 3. *De Universitate*: Where he seems to be in a Maze, and thinks, That the Structure of the Universe hath not been understood hitherto, nor will easily be hereafter. 4. *De Sole*: Which Luminary he is inclin'd to believe to be a kind of flaming Fire, appearing in a Telescope, like a Caldron full of boyling Metal; where also he discourses of the nature of Light, Heat, and Flame; and affirms Light (as other sensible Qualities) to be not in the Object but the Sentient; as Pain is not in the Sword, but in the Animal wounded by the Sword. 5. *De Generatione Hominis*: Where, distinguishing between Genitura and Semen, and making the former to be that substance, which either Sex furnishes to the Fatus, and the latter, the Concrete of both Parents, He is of opinion, that that which he calls Genitura, consists of two things. *Vid.* a Crasse liquor, manifest to sense; and of a very subtil and refined substance, containing all the virtue of Generation, and lodged in the formes as its receptacle: Which having establish'd, he affirms, that groser part of the Geniture not to be Blood elaborated, but a Juice, secreted from the Blood, and being strained through the Corpus varicosum or plexus pampiniformis (wherein the seminal Arteries are by innumerable Anastomoses so combined and interwoven with Veins, that very hardly any naked eye can discern a Vein from an Artery) it passeth into peculiar fit Vessels, and is of a colour like that of the White of an Egg. As to the Formation of the Fatus, he esteems That, before the appearance of any Blood, or the framing of any Member, there are form'd all the Lineaments of the Animal to come, though indiscernibly; which he endeavours to make out very particularly, interweaving some Animadversions on Authors of differing sentiments, and mentioning several not unphilosophical Hints. 6. *De Nutricione*: Here the Author observes some things in the the structure of the stomach, which he thinks highly considerable for the understanding of the action and use of this viscus, and hitherto not taken notice of by others that he knows. Then he teacheth, that the Food is not digested in the Stomach by Heat, nor by acid dissolving juices only, but that many Causes concurring to that digestion, the Aliment is there fermented both by the warmth of the Stomach itself, and of the neighbouring parts, but especially by the acrimonious steams that pass through the Gastrick and Splenick Arteries into the Stomach, which advances also its Concoction by its compressing and relaxing motions, and is assisted by an apt Liquor, bedewing, dissolving, and diluting the Meat, and so converting it into a Pulse or Cream-like substance. Next, he teacheth, that the Chyle passeth not through the milky Veins (so called by Asellius) to the Liver, nor all of it through the Channel of Pecquet to the Heart, but a great part of it through the common Veins of the Stomach and the Mesentery, to the Liver. Nor will he admit, that the Sanctification is performed in any one part of the Animal, as the peculiar Shop or Elaboratory of it, whether Liver, Heart, Spleen, &c. Nor that the parts are increased and nourished by the red part of the Blood; but that, as to the former action, it is done by the means of a Liquor, and by hot steams, giving the red colour to the Chyle, as Chymists use to change white Juices into red, by the affusion of Oyl of Sulphur, or the like Liquors; that redness being much advanced by the motion and agitation of the blood in the Veins and Arteries. But as to the latter, vid. the Nutrition, it is performed by that whitish Juice, which is mixed with the Blood, and separated from it by the straining Glandules of the Body. To these particulars he adds several not unconsiderable remarks touching the Gall, Spleen, Lymphatick Vessels, &c. Observing also, that the whole kind of Birds is destitute of milky Vessels; and occasionally taking notice, that Worms are bred in almost all the parts of Animal Bodies; of which he alledges very odd Observations and Histories. 7. De Vita: This he affirms to consist in the continued motion of the Blood, depending from that of the Heart; yet so, that this latter proceeds not from the heat of the Blood (as Des Cartes Cartes would have it) but the moist steams and expirations of the Heart. As for Respiration, he thinks it a vain opinion, that thereby the heat of the Blood is temper'd and allay'd; but affirms, that it is therefore necessary, because that the Blood, which out of the right Ventricle of the Heart is propelled into the Lungs, in such Animals, as are furnish'd with them, cannot pass into the left, unless the Air, breathed in, do swell and distend the small branches of the Windpipe; it being from thence, that the ramifications of the Arterial Vein, through which the blood must pass, are compress'd, and the blood therein inclosed is protruded into the branches of the venal Artery: For the proof of which, he alledges divers Observations. Adding withall, that since Animals, whilst they are in the Womb, respire not, there being peculiar ductus's, by which the blood passeth into the Aorta, without passing through the Lungs, as it always doth in Animals destitute of Lungs; he doubts not, but that with art and care those Channels may be preserved unabolish't, and made to grow and to be perfected with the other parts of the Animal, so that grown men may be brought to live the life of Amphibious Creatures. Nor doth he think this very difficult, in regard, that if their mouths and noses were from their very infancy often stopt every day, and their breath so long intercepted, whilst the blood passeth through those Ductus's into the left Ventricle of the Heart and the great Artery, the said passages would never be dried up: To confirm the possibility, whereof, he alledges Examples of divers, who from their Childhood being given to swimming and diving, and so to the holding of their breath, did thereby so preserve those Channels from being dried up, that upon occasion they could stay a great while under water, as Amphibiums use to do. LES ESSAYS PHYSIQUES du Sieur DE LAUNAY, Liv. premier. This Learned Man having propoted to himself to go through the whole Body of Natural Philosophy, by the way of Essays, divides that System into three Parts; whereof The First being General, is to treat of what is common to all Bodies, Bodies, both Superior and Inferior; and is divided again into six Books, whereof the first considers the Universe in general; the second is to discourse of Place, Vacuum, and Time, things as general as the World; the third, of the material Principles of all Bodies; the fourth, of their efficient Cause; the fifth, of their natural Qualities; and the sixth, of Motion, Generation, and Corruption of Bodies inanimate and animate. The second part is to examine the Celestial Bodies. The third shall treat of the Terrestrial, viz. the Elements, Meteors, Minerals, Plants, Brutes, Men. Of this Work is now printed the first Book of the first Part, consisting of five Dissertations. The first is about the preliminary Questions of Physiology. The second inquireth whether the Universe is compounded of many Worlds. The third is of the System of the World, its Magnitude, and Figure. The fourth examins, whether the World be animated? The fifth, whether it hath been or could be from Eternity? The sixth is concerning the End of the World. IV. FRANCISCI DE LAURENS SPECIMINA MATHEMATICA, duobus Libris comprehensa. Horum Prior, SYNTHETICUS, agit de Genuinis Matheseos Principiis in genere; in specie autem de Veris Geometriae Elementis hucusque nondum traditis. Posterior, ANALYTICUS, de Methodo Compositionis atque Resolutionis fusé differit; & multa nova complectitur, qua subtilissimam Analyseos Artem mirum in modum promovent. ERRATA, forgot to be corrected sooner. In No 28. Pag. 521. lin. 22, 23. r. She took dog (even before the wound was heal'd up) was with puppy. p. 525. l. 8. r. Answers that shall. ibid. l. 20. r. Mineral Queries. p. 532. l. 18. dele viz. p. 535. l. 2. Impelled at the Nose. ibid. l. 15. r. Grand poison. In No 29. p. 541. l. 18. r. An intimation. p. 544. l. 5. r. from the Indexes. ibid. l. 22. dele and as. p. 545. l. 21. r. break out. p. 548. l. 18. r. with wind or. In the SAVOY, Printed by T. N. for John Martyn, Printer to the Royal Society, and are to be sold at the Bell a little without Temple-Bar, 1667.