La recezione della teoria halleriana dell'irritabilità nell'Accademia delle scienze di Bologna / Marta Cavazza.
Abstract:
In Italy, the physiological theories of Albrecht von Haller, based on the thesis of the indipendence of the property of irritability, characteristic of muscles, from sensivity, characteristic of nerves, and on a refutation of the traditional iatro-mechanical axplanation of muscular motion, found numerous supporters and just as many opponents. This grave rise to a heated polemic, which involved numerius physicians, physicists and philosopher. The principal site for this polemic, most acute between 1756 and 1760, was Bologna, a city where the influence of Malpighian iatromechanics was still very strogly felt, but also where Haller's two most ardent supporters, Marc'Antonio Caldani and Felice Fontana, were active. The present study proposes to analyse the reactions of scientific circles in Bologna to this debate, especially for the case of the local Academy of Sciences, and to replace them in the context of the continuing dialectic brtween innovation and tradition that characterised the city
Nuncius A. 12, fasc. 2 (1997), p. 359-377