HALES, S.

[A] Vegetable staticks: or, an account of some statical experiments on the sap in vegetables: being an Essay towards a natural history of vegetation: Also, a specimen of an attempt to analyse the air, by a great variety of chemio-statical experiments, which were read at several meetings before the Royal Society.

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London, W. and J. Innys, 1727. 8vo (195 x 122mm). pp.(7), vii, (2), 376, with 19 engraved plates. Contemporary calf, rebacked with red gilt lettered label. (With:) HALES, S. [B] Statical essays: containing haemastaticks; or, an account of some Hydraulick and Hydrostatical experiments made on the blood and blood-vessels of animals. Also an account of some experiments on stones in the kidneys and the bladder; with an enquiry into the nature of those anomalous concretions. To which is added, an appendix containing observations and experiments relating to several subjects in the first volume?. With an index to both volumes. London, W. Innys and R. Manby, 1733. 8vo (200 x 124mm). pp. xxii, (26), 361, (23). Contemporary calf, rebacked with green and red gilt lettered label. (Together with:) Hales, S. [C] Statical Essays: containing vegetable staticks; or, an account of some statical experiments on the sap in vegetables?.Volume I. The second edition, with amendments. London, W. Innys, 1731. 8vo (198 x 125mm). pp. (6), vii, (4), 376, with 19 engraved plates. Contemporary calf, rebacked with green and red gilt lettered label.

The first complete account of the physiology of plants, including the reaction with air and movement of the sap

'Vegetable Staticks' is the first volume of Hale's Statical Essays (see [A] above), and was published in 1727. The concluding second volume 'Statical essays' (see [B] above) was published in 1733. However the second amended edition of the first volume (see [C] above) serves as the first volume to the work and the Index to both volumes of the second volume refers to the second edition of the first volume and the second volume. The title 'Statical Essays' does not appear in the first edition of the Vegetable Staticks, it was first applied to the whole work on the publication of the second edition of the first volume.
"The first complete account of the physiology of plants, including the reaction with air and movement of the sap" Horblit 45 a, for the first volume and "Important studies on blood pressure" Horblit 45b, for the second volume.
"In his investigations of plant physiology, described in 'Vegetable statics', Hales studied the movement of water in plants, determining three factors of water movement - root suction, root pressure and leaf suction - and established that plants lose water constantly via transpiration through leaves? He also established that plants do not have a true circulation, and developed techniques to measure the varying rates of growth in different plant structures. "Haemastaticks', the second volume of 'Statical essays', record Hales's pioneering measurement of blood pressure using the manometer, which made it possible to calculate the work of the heart and estimate the magnitude of peripheral resistance. Hales was also the first physiologist to suggest that electricity plays a role in neuromuscular phenomena" (Norman 970).
The first volume has a manuscript leaf inserted.

Provenance: Two volumes with the armorial book plate of the Library of Ragley Hall.

Printing and the Mind of Man 189; Dibner. Heralds of Science, 26; Horblit 45 A & B.