AUTHOR: Darwin, Erasmus (1731-1802) TITLE: Zoonomia; or, The laws of organic life, by Erasmus Darwin. The 3d ed., cor. IMPRINT: London, J. Johnson, 1801. COLLATION: 4 v.: plates (part col.); 22 cm. NOTES: Have complete. “Darwin’s first major treatise on medicine and natural science which was the result of twenty years work. It contains a detailed system of pathology and a treatise of pathology and a treatise on generation. Of special interest is an important section on ophthalmology, illustrated by the six colored plates ‘motions of the retina’ and ‘ocular spectra.’ Erasmus Darwin, the famous grandfather of Charles Darwin, was himself a man of many talents. In the present work he set himself a primary task of definition and explanation of the physiological and psychological bases of the laws of animal causation, and of the four types of fibrous motions - irritative, sensitive, voluntary, and association - on which he based his classification of diseases. On the important question of inherited characteristics ‘he held that the changes that species undergo in the course of time are due to influences that bear on the individuals from without. These changes he held were passed on to the offspring. Erasmus Darwin was the first to state the thesis of inheritance.’”— Don Conner & Jeff Weber, catalogue 41 REFERENCES: Garrison and Morton 105; DSB, III, pp. 571-81; Singer, A history of biology, pp. 291-292. KEYWORDS: 1. Physiology. 2. Pathology. 3. Medicine. 4. Evolution. LOCATION: QP29.D22 1801