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Erasmus Darwin ERASMUS DARWIN “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Erasmus Darwin HDT WHAT? INDEX ERASMUS DARWIN ERASMUS DARWIN 1619 In London, William Harvey confirmed the fact of circulation of the blood. What remained to be figured out was the mechanism by which this was occurring — as we didn’t as yet know of the network of capillaries inside the tissue by which the circuit is completed. Between this year and 1628 he would be constructing his theory of circulation. THE SCIENCE OF 1619 HDT WHAT? INDEX ERASMUS DARWIN ERASMUS DARWIN 1621 The botanist John Tradescant joins the service of the Duke of Buckingham, George Villiers. At Oxford, founding of the 1st botanic garden in Britain, by Lord Henry Danvers, the Earl of Danby, 76 years after the founding of the 1st continental garden. This was probably inspired by John Tradescant’s garden of exotic plants in South Lambeth. THE SCIENCE OF 1621 HDT WHAT? INDEX ERASMUS DARWIN ERASMUS DARWIN 1690 Denis Papin published his first work on the steam engine, DE NOVIS QUIBUSDAM MACHINIS. The function of his steam engine was to raise water into a canal between Kassel and Karlshaven. He also used a steam engine to pump water to a tank on the palace roof, that supplied water for the fountains in the gardens. THE SCIENCE OF 1690 HDT WHAT? INDEX ERASMUS DARWIN ERASMUS DARWIN 1698 Thomas Savery’s “fire engine,” the first working steam engine, amounted to a pump operated by steam power which had no moving parts. THE SCIENCE OF 1698 HDT WHAT? INDEX ERASMUS DARWIN ERASMUS DARWIN 1705 In 1698, Thomas Savery had patented a steam engine. When Herr Professor G.W. von Leibnitz sent Denis Papin a sketch of a steam engine, Papin began working on that topic again and would author THE NEW ART OF PUMPING WATER BY USING STEAM (1707). He designed a safety valve to prevent the pressure of steam building up to dangerous levels. Other inventions which Papin worked on were the construction of a submarine, an air gun, and a grenade launcher. He tried to build up a glass industry in Hesse-Kassel and also experimented with preserving food both with chemicals and using a vacuum. This was the year, however, of Thomas Newcomen’s improved “fire engine.” Applying Thomas Savery’s principle of the condensation of steam to produce a vacuum, he applied the atmospheric pressure not to shove a column of water up a pipe but to shove a metal piston from one end to another of a cylinder. This device was more general in its application because it produced a mechanical motion which could then be used to drive anything: for instance, it could drive a conventional water pump — but it could also turn the crank of a spinning machine. THE SCIENCE OF 1705 HDT WHAT? INDEX ERASMUS DARWIN ERASMUS DARWIN 1712 In this year, at some point, Denis Papin, the developer of a steam engine, died in London, England. In this year, at some point, some half century or more before James Watt, Thomas Newcomen developed a workable steam pump for use in mines. THE SCIENCE OF 1712 HDT WHAT? INDEX ERASMUS DARWIN ERASMUS DARWIN 1731 December 12, Sunday (Old Style): Erasmus Darwin was born at Elston Hall near Newark, which is near Nottingham in Nottinghamshire. He would grow up to have his speech impeded by a stammer. His grandson Charles Robert would write of the family name that it was an unusual name, and that: Erasmus Darwin was descended from a family of yeoman who lived for several generations on their own land, apparently of considerable extent, at Marton in Lincolnshire. He stammered greatly, and it is surprising that this defect did not spoil his powers of conversation. A young man once asked him in, as he thought, an offensive manner, whether he did not find stammering very inconvenient. He answered, “No, Sir, it gives me time for reflection, and saves me from answering impertinent questions.” Manners seem to have been very coarse in those old days. A notorious man, Dr. Caleb Hardinge, who seems to have lived in good society, said to my grandfather, “my dear doctor, you have a damned ugly trick of stuttering; I am sure I could cure you.” To which my grandfather replied, alluding, evidently to the swearing, “Physician, heal thyself.” The lad would be educated at Cambridge and Edinburgh and would settle first near Lichfield and later at Derby. He would turn out to be a remarkable polymath, and would be a best-selling poet during the same period in which he would be earning his living as a country doctor, while simultaneously having activities as a naturalist, as a medical botanist, and as an inventor of actual “indeed it does work” mechanical devices. NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT Erasmus Darwin “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX ERASMUS DARWIN ERASMUS DARWIN 1731 OLD STYLE / 1732 NEW STYLE January 13, Friday (1731, Old Style): Erasmus Darwin was baptized at Elston Church in Newark, Nottinghamshire. HDT WHAT? INDEX ERASMUS DARWIN ERASMUS DARWIN 1737 A maid-servant accidentally struck Erasmus Darwin on the middle of his head. Ever afterward a white lock of hair would mark this spot. (Another undated boyhood incident: while fishing with his brothers, he was put into a bag with only his feet out and as a result almost drowned.) TIMELINE OF ACCIDENTS DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD. Erasmus Darwin “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX ERASMUS DARWIN ERASMUS DARWIN 1740 Upon the death of his mother, Joseph Priestley went to live with his aunt, a person with strong nonconformist religious views. He would attend Bately Grammar School but after three years ill health would force him to return home. He was a brilliant student and with the help of local teachers, became proficient in physics, philosophy, algebra, mathematics, and several different languages. HDT WHAT? INDEX ERASMUS DARWIN ERASMUS DARWIN 1741 Erasmus Darwin was sent to Chesterfield School for a classical and literary education. While playing at school with Lord George Cavendish, he would be badly injured in a gunpowder explosion. CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT Erasmus Darwin “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX ERASMUS DARWIN ERASMUS DARWIN 1750 June 30, Saturday (Old Style): Erasmus Darwin and his brother John were admitted to St John’s College of Cambridge. HDT WHAT? INDEX ERASMUS DARWIN ERASMUS DARWIN 1751 May: Erasmus Darwin’s 1st published poem, “Death of Prince Frederick.” The church in Lincoln voted to receive any member of the church in Concord who might be dismissed. July: Erasmus Darwin’s 2d published poem, “To Mr Gurney.” HDT WHAT? INDEX ERASMUS DARWIN ERASMUS DARWIN 1753 January-April: Probably it was during this period that Erasmus Darwin was attending Dr. William Hunter’s lectures on anatomy in London. October: Erasmus Darwin left London to visit a medical school in Edinburgh. HDT WHAT? INDEX ERASMUS DARWIN ERASMUS DARWIN 1755 June: Probably it was at this point that Erasmus Darwin received his M.B. degree from Cambridge. October: Probably it was at this point that Erasmus Darwin began his studies at Edinburgh Medical School. HDT WHAT? INDEX ERASMUS DARWIN ERASMUS DARWIN 1756 June: Erasmus Darwin completed his studies at Edinburgh Medical School. Presumably, at this point he qualified as a medical doctor. November 12, Friday, 1756: Dr. Erasmus Darwin arrived at Lichfield to begin a new medical practice. (Previously he had tried to establish his medical practice, and failed, at Nottingham, having had only one patient, who had died without paying any compensation for his care — a shoemaker who had been drunkenly stabbed by another shoemaker. We should not, however, judge too harshly such an initial failure, since we know from our own experience in the history of the town of Concord, Massachusetts, that people do tend to have difficulty in accepting a physician who has a speech impediment.) HDT WHAT? INDEX ERASMUS DARWIN ERASMUS DARWIN 1757 May 6, Friday: Dr. Erasmus Darwin’s paper on “Ascent of Vapour” was published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. (We now characterize him as the first person to properly explain cloud formation. His model of the behavior of the earth’s atmosphere would be the accepted one until the 1950s.) THE SCIENCE OF 1757 LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Erasmus Darwin HDT WHAT? INDEX ERASMUS DARWIN ERASMUS DARWIN December 30, Friday: Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Mary (Polly) Howard, 17-18 years old, were wed. HDT WHAT? INDEX ERASMUS DARWIN ERASMUS DARWIN 1758 The Eastern Screech Owl Otus asio and the Long-Eared Owl Asio otus were 1st described and classified, in a vastly enlarged 10th edition of Carolus Linnaeus’s SYSTEMA NATURAE (SYSTEM OF NATURE) which THE SCIENCE OF 1758 HDT WHAT? INDEX ERASMUS DARWIN ERASMUS DARWIN included a classification of over 4,000 species of such Animalia. WALDEN: Even the sailor on the Atlantic and Pacific is awakened by his voice; but its shrill sound never roused me from my slumbers. I kept neither dog, cat, cow, pig, nor hens, so that you would have said there was a deficiency of domestic sounds; neither the churn, nor the spinning wheel, nor even the singing of the kettle, nor the hissing of the urn, nor children crying, to comfort one. An old-fashioned man would have lost his senses or died of ennui before this.
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