Electroluminescence 269 



tricity; for I have by repeated trials, found a Cat's Back to be 

 strongly electrical, when stroak'd." Miles went on to point out that 

 " electrical effluvia " and " luminous effluvia " are the same. 



Electricity as a cause of ignis lambens was also adopted by Bonifaz 

 Heinrich Ehrenberger (1681-1759) , a professor of mathematics and 

 metaphysics at Coburg. Ehrenberger's tract (1745) is in the form 

 of a memorial to B. G. H. Hoffman, with the title: Concerning the 

 Mistress Shedding Light arid Sparks. In this case the persons in- 

 volved were of humble origin, and the story one of illicit love. 

 When the couple met, the girl was observed " shining and scattering 

 sparks." The high magistrate of the town saw this as proof that 

 the pair was incurring its doom, and forbade their marriage. 



Ehrenberger, however, had his own explanation. He wrote: 



. . . For she was so filled with the ardor of love that her limbs were 

 far from being stiff with cold, rather the excessive heat stirred up a 

 greater and more intense motion of her blood and also sweat, which 

 adhering to the passages of the skin or the fibers of her clothing partly 

 diffused light, and, separated from them by the motion of the air, partly 

 spread sparks. This makes it evident that there is something similar to 

 what happens in electricity. For the latter originates from swift and 

 intense motion. ... By that motion light is generated in the electric.-^ 



After the middle of the century, the electrical explanation of ignis 

 lambens became universal, as had the electrical nature of the aurora 

 borealis. 



The " Electric Light " and " Electric Fire " 



VIRTUES AND EFFLUVIA 



Although William Gilbert (1540-1603) introduced the words 

 " electricks " and " anelectricks " for substances which would or 

 would not attract light bodies, there is no mention of any luminous 

 phenomena in his famotis book, De Magnete (1600) . Apparently 

 van Helmont ^° used a word, translated as " electricity," in connec- 

 tion with the cure of wounds by magnetism. Thomas Browne ^^ 

 (1605-1682) also spoke of electricity in Pseudodoxica Epidemica, 

 and Boyle used the term regularly in Experiments and Notes about 

 the Mechanical Origine or Production of divers particular Quali- 



^* Translated by Mrs. A. Holborn from De amatrice lumen scintillas spargente, 

 Coburg, 1745. 



^° W. Charleton, A ternery of paradoxes of the magnetic cure of wounds, etc. trans- 

 lated, illustrated and ampliated by W. Carleton, 77, London, 1650, a translation of 

 van Helmont. 



''^ Pseudodoxia epidemica, Book II, Chap. 4. 



