So far, I have explained the development of a Newtonian approach to medicine as the result of the combination of a mechanical approach and a strict mathematical treatment of physiology, which ended in Cheyne’s iatromathematics. As Guerrini suggests, this combination is framed in the use of forces between particles as causes for several physiological phenomena and, particularly, those of the secretions. By emphasizing the mathematical elements of the demonstration, the Newtonian physicians attempted to reduce every physiological element to the geometrical terms, intending to achieve the same success Newton had in the Principia. However, the Newtonian medicine varied at the beginning of the eighteenth century, passing from being focused on the
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Guerrini, for instance, limits her analysis to claiming that there was another tradition emerging from the experimental brand developed under the shadow of the Opticks. Although, a possible explanation can be found in her analysis of the socio-political elements of the emergence of the Newtonianism. A similar study is proposed by Simon Schaffer, Steven Shapin, and John Friesen. Brown, likewise, has suggested that the causes for the transformation of the Newtonian medicine can be found in the death of the most important figures of the first stage of the Newtonian mathematical approach to physiology, and of Newton himself, during the first decades of the eighteenth century. According to Brown: the ‘English scientists generally relieved themselves of the heavy burden of mathematical, quantitative Newtonianism and turned eagerly to natural philosophical studies of new experimental phenomena, like those of electricity’ (1974: …show more content…
Keill divides the explanation of animal secretion into two sections: In the first section, he explains how the fluids to be secreted come to be formed, through the postulation of attractive forces; influenced by the Newtonian approach of Pitcairne and, probably, Cheyne. In the second section, he demonstrates how the fluids are separated from the blood in the glands. Using empirical evidence provided by microscopic observations, Keill claims that blood is composed of two kinds of particles: red globules and some other corpuscles, varying in figure and magnitude. The main characteristic of the red globules is that they attract each other in such a way that they, ‘swimming in a fluid’, ‘unite like spheres of quicksilver, which, as they touch, run into one another’ (Keill, 1708: 2). The other particles composing the blood, unlike the red globules, only unite one another ‘till some part of the fluid, in which they swim, has been evaporated by heat; and then they likewise attract one another, and form a coagulum, as the globules did’ (Keill, 1708: 2). In this characterization, we can see that Keill recurs to the differences of the attractive forces between particles in order to explain how the particles of the blood attract each other. However, unlike Pitcairne and Cheyne, whose use of Newtonian attractive forces between particles
Guerrini, for instance, limits her analysis to claiming that there was another tradition emerging from the experimental brand developed under the shadow of the Opticks. Although, a possible explanation can be found in her analysis of the socio-political elements of the emergence of the Newtonianism. A similar study is proposed by Simon Schaffer, Steven Shapin, and John Friesen. Brown, likewise, has suggested that the causes for the transformation of the Newtonian medicine can be found in the death of the most important figures of the first stage of the Newtonian mathematical approach to physiology, and of Newton himself, during the first decades of the eighteenth century. According to Brown: the ‘English scientists generally relieved themselves of the heavy burden of mathematical, quantitative Newtonianism and turned eagerly to natural philosophical studies of new experimental phenomena, like those of electricity’ (1974: …show more content…
Keill divides the explanation of animal secretion into two sections: In the first section, he explains how the fluids to be secreted come to be formed, through the postulation of attractive forces; influenced by the Newtonian approach of Pitcairne and, probably, Cheyne. In the second section, he demonstrates how the fluids are separated from the blood in the glands. Using empirical evidence provided by microscopic observations, Keill claims that blood is composed of two kinds of particles: red globules and some other corpuscles, varying in figure and magnitude. The main characteristic of the red globules is that they attract each other in such a way that they, ‘swimming in a fluid’, ‘unite like spheres of quicksilver, which, as they touch, run into one another’ (Keill, 1708: 2). The other particles composing the blood, unlike the red globules, only unite one another ‘till some part of the fluid, in which they swim, has been evaporated by heat; and then they likewise attract one another, and form a coagulum, as the globules did’ (Keill, 1708: 2). In this characterization, we can see that Keill recurs to the differences of the attractive forces between particles in order to explain how the particles of the blood attract each other. However, unlike Pitcairne and Cheyne, whose use of Newtonian attractive forces between particles