Versuch uber die Elektricitaet, worinn Theorie und Ausubung dieser Wissenschaft durch eine Menge methodisch geordneter Experimente erlautert wird, nebst einem Versuch uber den Magnet.

Vienna:: Johann Thomas Edlen v. Trattnern, 1786., 1786. 8vo. (208 x 126 mm) vi, [10], 270 pp. Six engraved folding plates; toning and foxing throughout, lightly soiled plates, ownership pen marks on front flyleaf. Half calf over two-tone green floral motif boards, raised bands, gilt-stamping on spine, gilt-stamped red leather spine label, edges tinted red; worn boards, insect damage to spine ends, light marginal worming throughout. Cyrillic bookplate, Cyrillic library stamps and manuscript index number on title-page, Cyrillic library stamp on Plate I (Ar. Shevchenko"), early ownership signature. SCARCE. Second German edition. George Adams served as instrument maker to George III of England and as optician to the Prince of Wales. First published at London in 1784, the Essay on Electricity was reprinted the following year in an enlarged edition containing an essay on magnetism. The first German language edition was published at Leipzig in the same year. Adams seeks to present a general theory of electricity and, in line with George Ill's interest in the practical applications of science, assess its possible medical uses. The six engraved plates are of particular interest, containing 105 figures, mostly illustrating various experimental instruments constructed by Adams, often at the request of the English king, and including a frock-coated patient (plate V, fig. 87) apparently undergoing electrical therapy. The plate depicting magnetic lines of force will remind many of experiments they themselves conducted in elementary school. Wheeler Gift 519. See Mottelay, Bibliographical History of Electricity and Magnetism, pp. 280-81.