An Enquiry into the Causes of Diseases in General, and the Disturbances of the Humors in Man’s Body: Wherein the Nature of the Blood, of the Air and of a Pestilential Constitution are briefly considered: Together with some Observations, shewing wherein the Venom of Vipers, particularly that of the English Adder, does consist

London: Printed for Thomas Basset, 1692. SOLE EDITION. Hardcover. Fine. A crisp copy in contemporary sheepskin (corners bumped, light wear.) With a short worm-track to the inner margin touching the occasional letter. With a contemporary ownership inscription on the front endpaper and rear cover of William Griffith. Extremely rare. NLM only in North America. First and only edition of this medical work on airborne illness, the circulatory system, and venom by Stanford Wolferstan (b. 1652), youngest son of the noted book collector Frances Wolfreston (1607–1677).

“Stanford Wolferstan (d.1698) was a medical practitioner and active researcher who (truncated) employed the microscope in order to investigate the poisonous attributes of the adder. In 1692, he published a tract on medicine which demonstrates that he was fully conversant with the latest iatrochemical and iatromechanical theories of the body, from which he developed his own highly original speculations as to the origin of most diseases.”(Elmer, Medicine in the Age of Revolution)

In his “Enquiry”, Wolferstan challenges traditional humoral theories, proposing that diseases stem from disturbances in the air, specifically due to a deficiency of an “aerial salt.” He suggests that this deficiency leads to the corruption of bodily humors and the onset of diseases. Additionally, he explores the venom of vipers, particularly the English adder, concluding -remarkably- that their poison is airborne, reinforcing his belief in aerial causes of disease. Wolferstan’s experiments with the adder include exposing dogs and cats to snakebite, and close inspection -with the use of the microscope- of the adder’s fangs and respiratory system.

The True Cause of the Circulation of Blood:

Wolferston argues that aerial salts penetrate the body through respiration, allowing them to enter the lungs, as well as by eating (in which instance they are absorbed though the stomach lining.) According to Wolferstan, when inhaled, the salts combine with the humors and stimulate circulation of the blood:

“It is apparent, both by dissection and inflation of the Lungs, that the Air does enter from the Larynx and brachia into the Vesiculary Cells; and there, whether by Adhesion or Dissolution, does deposit at least some part of this Aereal Salt; where, meeting with the occurring Humors, is directly carried to the Heart, and by its pungent Particles, molesting and irritating the streight and oblique Fibres of the Heart, does stir them up into, a Systole, or Contraction ; and so by straightening its Ventricles, to drive forth the Blood contained in them into the Arteries: And this I take to be the true Original of all Pulsation, and first Motion of the Heart and Circulation of the Blood throughout the Body.”(p. 24-5)

While Wolferstan’s theory of aerial salts proved to be incorrect, he was right in his recommendation that risk of contracting airborne diseases is best mitigated by proper ventilation, which also, in his mind, allowed healthy air to move more freely:

“[We] may by the wise and learned Physician's Advice, be taught how in part either to correct ill Air, or avoid it, or at least how to fortifie the Humors of our Body against it… According to the Principles I have laid down, I cannot but recommend an open, free, and uninterrupted Air; a sandy Soil, a situation upon the highest Ground, free from Hills, Woods, or anything else that may intercept this Sweet and Balsamick Air.”(p. 81)

Stanford was the beneficiary of his mother’s large library – or rather of the
physick and ‘godly’ books unconditionally and of the rest as long as his siblings had access to them (see ODNB). Evidently having met with ‘Dissatisfaction … withal in Books’ on his chosen subject, Wolferstan resolved ‘to speak my own Thoughts’ – in which he attributes all diseases to an ‘aerial salt’ rather than to blood or humors. (Inventory #: 5234)