TABOR, John [b. 1667].

Exercitationes Medicae, Quae Tam Morborum Quam Symptomatum In Plerisque Morbis Rationem Illustrant.

      London: Printed by William & John Innys, 1724. - 8vo. pp. xxiv, 315, [5]. complete with initial licence leaf. 5 folding engraved plates. woodcut ornaments & initials. contemporary paneled calf (extremities rubbed, joints cracked). First Edition. "An adherent of the iatro-mathematical school that developed under the aegis of Newtonianism during the early eighteenth century, Tabor attemped to incorporate medical animism into a mathematical framework in his Exercitationes Medicae (1724). He accepted the rational soul or anima, which presumably induced and controlled the activities of living organisms, as the fundamental cause of physiological processes. Because the anima manifested itself through the movements of bodily parts and fluids according to the established laws of physical motion, however, Tabor held that the primary task of medical theory was the calculation of the size, shape, and movement of organic structures While maintaining that the anima was the primary force preserving organic systems against decay, Tabor followed John Friend and James and John Keill in admitting physical attraction as an independent force capable of affecting physiological activity. He construed disease, for example, as the process of which the anima, through muscular spasms, fevers, and similar means, restored bodily equilibrium by counteracting the attractive force of foreign and deleterious particles." (DSB) Not in Blake. [Attributes: First Edition]