Part 4 || Dr.Gil On Amber and electricity ||
In this part, we continue from where we left off in
part 3 on Dr.Gil's book. this is chapter 2 of Book 2. Let's go....
Chapter II
Of magnetic coition; And first of the Attraction exerted by Amber, or more properly the attachment of bodies to amber
This, is finally the chapter where Dr.Gil addresses the subject of attraction of stuff to amber and of the comments from various people on this phenomenon. He starts off by commenting that philosophers(so-called) or what he calls "light-headed metaphysicians", or quack theologians so to say, bring in the phenomena of attraction by amber or lodestone, the reasons for which were not very well understood thereto, to prove or to validate explanations where reason can go no further or which can not be explained completely on the basis of the then known logic.
here are some excerpts:
He then goes on to state that the cause behind the coition as displayed by lodestone and that by amber are very different. Here, Dr.Gil(& I'm lovin' it) goes to list various names by which amber is called in different cultures,
It is here, whence, the '
elektron' or
'electri' is first ever stated in a scientific literary work. Oh my lord this is one of the finest moments of my life when I am experiencing a historic moment. I may seem a bit peculiar with my precious expression but this does mean so much to me and so does the expression, and hence, I am willing to look a little eccentric if that's what it is.
He then give some brief words upon the origin of amber and then moves on to mentioning another stone-> called jet that, like amber, has been written about as attracting light and small stuff. He comments that many people then were writing or had written about this attraction phenomena without any logical/experimental proof or any hint of scientific reasonings. Here's an excerpt where he expresses his disdain:
He then goes on to list various other materials that he informs as able to attract such light and small objects(so as to demonstrate that there is no special, sort of, occult powers associated with amber whatsoever). Here's an excerpt where he lists them:
☸ Imp: He calls such bodies electrics or electric. Here's the exact historical passage with its word-to-word English translations as done by chatGPT:
Also, he asserts that such substances not only attract chaff, twigs, but sundry other substances. Here's the excerpt:
Now, to detect or to essentially see/test out the effects of such attraction ourselves, Dr.Gil gives us what he calls, a
versorium. --->
latin verb:
verso: to turn or to rotate;
-orium: denotes a place or instrument associated with an action. So, in literal sense, it would mean a
turning device. But what Dr.Gil has made is basically an
electroscope( greek: -skopos: to look at/examine).
In the footnotes of the page, I found this, almost comical, explanation of why amber attracts stuff:
Dr.Gil attacks the cause behind this attraction in various ways:
He says, amber does not attract by the virtue of heat as even when the amber is made to be burning hot in a flame, it does not attract. He states attraction can also NOT be caused by the air displaced, as then, attraction wouldn't occur in open air(I fail to fully comprehend this reason). He argues against fire being a cause of attraction as even a flaming piece of coal, or iron rod, or candle, does not display an induction of movement near a versorium. Even though they do cause air to come into current for they do consume air to burn. He argues that the attraction can not be due to a property peculiar to amber, for all the substances, even those of different properties are attracted by it. Also, he argues that "likeness" or identity of a substance can not form the cause of attraction as like does not attract like always. In his words:
After this, Dr.Gil cites a very interesting opinion of another eminent physician:
Girolamo Fracastoro. Here's a summary of his views on attraction from two of his works->
'De Sympathy et Antipathia Rerum' and
'De contagione et contagiose morbis' (English: 'On likeness(sympathy) and antipathy of things' and 'On contagion and contagious diseases') - 1546:
Here are some relevant excerpts from his books:
Extracted all this info on Fracastoro from chatGPT. here is what Dr.Gil quotes of him:
But doc declares this to be an error on Fracastoro's part, the reason for which, as Dr.Gil declares is a lack of experimentation and facts. He argues that amber, jet etc. attracts objects even if they are unlike. In his words: "
All bodies are drawn to all electrics". He notes that amber and such stones do not attract stuff before being rubbed. Whence, he also notes, that sundry other bodies(which he calls
anelectrics), do not attract even by friction. Here are some of them:
He then states that the lodestone is void of the electric attraction. Dr.Gil pulls, then, some mental athletics to come to the conclusion that, corpuscles are drawn towards substances that derive their origin from water. Now, we're gonna try to understand the manner of force and the cause of attraction. Dr.Gil lays down this theory that, first of all, the causes for attraction for magnetic bodies are different from that of electric bodies. He goes on to state those differences as: electric bodies need friction to attract while magnetic do not. Attraction due to electric bodies is affected by environmental factors such as moisture, which he says:
"dampens/destroys the effluvia(remember this term) that is responsible for attraction".
He also talks about the proposition that Amber and the like materials set air in currents, and that makes objects come closer. Dr.Gil proves this wrong by taking an amber/diamond near a candle flame after rubbing it, and the flame is unaffected which wouldn't happen if the flame is set in motion/current. He gives an argument upon why even though amber attracts water, its attraction capacity is hindered by humid substances or environment. He says >
"It is one thing to suppress the effluvium at its rise, another to destroy it after it is emitted."
And such is his views and reasonings pertaining to attraction by amber and the like. Also, he has a very interesting view upon air being the earth's universal effluvium. He says that: an analogy to amber, Earth also pulls stuff towards itself using air as a universal effluvium. Here is an excerpt that expresses his views a bit more clearly:
Another interesting observation by Dr.Gil:
And with this and several other arguments and observations which I was not able to jot down, this historical chapter comes to an end!!!
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