Six discourses / delivered by Sir John Pringle, Bart. when president of the Royal Society, on occasion of six annual assignments of Sir Godfrey Copley's medal. To which is prefixed The life of the author by Andrew Kippis, D.D. F.R.S. and S.A.

  • Pringle, John, Sir, 1707-1782.
Date:
1783
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Six discourses / delivered by Sir John Pringle, Bart. when president of the Royal Society, on occasion of six annual assignments of Sir Godfrey Copley's medal. To which is prefixed The life of the author by Andrew Kippis, D.D. F.R.S. and S.A. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

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    But, in order to your more freely feal- ing the choice of your Council with your fufirages, permit me, Gentlemen, firft to lay before you a fhort abftratt of what had been done in this branch of Natural Hiftory, antecedently to Mr. Walsh's ex- periments ; and then to remind you of a few of his principal ones, that while we do juftice to our worthy brother, none may be defrauded of the praife due to their labour. THE Torpedo, or cramp-fifli, a fpecies of the ray, being a common inhabitant of the Mediterranean, was early known to the Greeks. We find it firft mentioned in a book anciently afcribcd to Hippocrates, though only as an efculent fifhj but the name alone (vdgitvi) is fufficient to afcertain the knowledge the ancients then had of its torporific