B O R 



721 



B O R 



Border 



II 

 Borelli. 



struck with apoplexy ; and, after eight days of suf- 

 fering, he expired on the 12th of March, 1782. 



Bordenave \vr * professor royal and director of the 

 Academy of Surgery, and member of the Imperial 

 Academy at Florence. To the Memoirs of the first 

 of these institutions he contributed many valuable 

 papers on various subjects in surgery, medicine, and 

 anatomy. In 1756, he published his Essai sur la 

 Physiologic, in 12mo, which was reprinted in 1764. 

 In 1757, he published his Remarques sur I' insensi- 

 bilite de quelques parties, 12mo. In 1768, he pub- 

 lished a translation of Haller's Elements of Physio- 

 logy, for the benefit of his pupils. In 1769, appear- 

 ed his Dissertations sur les Antiseptiqu.es, 8vo ; and 

 in 1774, he published his Memoir es sur le danger des 

 Caustiques pour la cure radkale des Hernies. See 

 Haller's Bio. Chi ring. ; and the Mem. Acad. Par. 

 1 782, Hist. p. 78. (*) 



BORDER. See Gardening. 



BOREALIS, Aurora. See Aurora Borcalis. 



BORELLI, John Alphonsus, a celebrated Ita- 

 lian physician and anatomist, was born at Castel Nuovo, 

 in the kingdom of Naples, on the 28th of January 

 1608. Having been sent to finish his education at 

 Rome, he made rapid progress under the care of 

 Castelli, and acquired such a reputation for his abi- 

 lities, that he was invited to teach mathematics at 

 Messina in Sicily. In 1647 and 1648, a malignant 

 fever having broken out in that island, and committed 

 dreadful ravages, Borelli paid particular attention to 

 the disease, and published a treatise upon it at Co- 

 senza, entitled, Delle ragioni dellc febri maligni di 

 Sici/ia, 12mo, 1649. From Messina he went to Pisa, 

 where he was appointed professor of philosophy and 

 mathematics, an office which he filled with great suc- 

 cess. The fame of his talents had reached the ears 

 of the Grand Duke Ferdinand, and of Prince Leopold, 

 through whose influence he was honoured with a 6eat 

 in the Academy del Cimento. About this time he be- 

 gan to employ his mathematical knowledge in ex- 

 plaining the functions of the animal ceconomy; and 

 we accordingly find, that between the years 1659 

 and 1664, he wrote numerous letters to Malpighi 

 upon that subject, which were afterwards published 

 in the posthumous works of that learned anatomist. 



Having engaged in the revolt of Messina, he was 

 obliged to quit Sicily and retire to Rome, where he 

 lived under the patronage of Queen Christina, who 

 was at that time resident in the capital of Italy. The 

 liberality of the Swedish queen, however, docs not 

 seem to have been of great extent, as we find Bo- 

 relli under the necessity of teaching mathematics in 

 the pious schools in the convent of St Pantalion, 

 where he died of a pleurisy on the 31st December 

 1679, in the 72d year of his age. 



Borelli carried on a correspondence with some of 

 the leading philosophers of his age, particularly with 

 Mr John Collins, Mr Oldenburgh, Dr Wallis, Mr 

 Boyle, and Malpighi, and vas held in high estima- 

 tion among his contemporaries. 



His principal writings are : 



1. Delle ragioni delle febri maligni di Sicilia. 

 Cosenza, 16-49, 12mo. 



2. Delia cause delle febri maligni. Pisa, 1658, 

 4to. 



VOL. III. PART IV. 



3. Apollonii Pergaei Conicorum, lib. v. vi. et vii. 

 Florent. 1661, fol. 



4. De Renum usu judicium, accompanied by Bel- 

 lini's treatise De structura Renum. Strasburg, 1664, 

 8vo. 



5. Theoria? Meaicorum Planetarum ex causis 

 Physicis deducts. Florent. 1666, 4to. 



6. De vi Percussionis. Bologna, 1667, 4to. 



7. Euclides Restitutus. Pisa, 1668, 4to. 



8. Osservatione intorno alia vista in eguali degli 

 Occi, published in the Journal of Rome for 1669. 



9. De motionibus naturalibus de Gravitate pen- 

 dentibus. Regio Julio, 1670, 4to. 



10. Meteorologia iEtnea. Regio Julio, 1670, 4to. 

 Borelli having been present at the formidable and 

 destructive eruption in 1669, drew up an account of 

 it at the desire of the Royal Society of London, who 

 printed it in their Transactions. 



11. Osservatione dell' Ecclipi Luoari 11 Gennaro 

 1675, published in the Journal of Rome for 1675, 

 p. 34. 



12. Elementa Conica Apollonii Pergasi, et Archi- 

 medis Opera, nova et breviori Methodo demonstrata. 

 This work was printed at Rome in 1679 in 12mo, at 

 the end of the 3d edition of his Euclides Restitutus. 



13. De motu Animalium. This work was pub- 

 lished after Borelli's death. The first part appeared 

 in 1680, and the second in 1681. A more correct 

 edition was published at Leyden in 1685, along with 

 John Bernoulli's Mathematical Meditations concern- 

 ing the Motion of the Muscles. Another edition ap- 

 peared at Leyden in 1686, under the care of Dr 

 Broen, along with his two pieces, De vi Percussionis, 

 and De Motionibus, &c. 



The principal writings of Borelli are, his treatises 

 on the Force of Percussion, and on the Motion of 

 Animals. In the first of these works, he endeavours 

 to demonstrate the proportion between the percus- 

 sive force, the motion or the velocity of the percus- 

 sion, and the resistance of the body struck ; and he- 

 has not scrupled to say, that he has succeeded in de- 

 monstrating the nature, cause, properties, and effects 

 of percussion. In this work he occasionally treats 

 of gravity, magnetism, pendulums, and the tremor 

 of bodies. 



Borelli's treatise on the Motion of Animals, which 

 was dedicated to Christina, Queen of Sweden, and 

 printed at her expence, exhibits a fine application of 

 the laws of statics to' the motion of living beings. 

 He supposes the muscular fibres to be vesicular, and 

 their contraction to arise from the introduction of a 

 portion of the nervous fluid, which mixes with tin- 

 blood they contain, and by swelling them, shortens 

 their length. He endeavours to measure the indi- 

 vidual and the collective power of the fibres which 

 compose a muscle; and he shews in what measure 

 their power is varied, by the manner in which the 

 fibres are united with the tendons. Varignon and Dr 

 Keil have pointed out some errors in the calculations 

 of Borelli ; but these are quite trifling, when com- 

 pared with the value and originality of this curious 

 work, (jr) 



BORER. See Auger. 



BORGIA, CffisAR, one of the most consummate 

 villains mentioned in modern history, was the second 

 4x 



Borelli 



:! 

 Borgia. 



