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TIBBYBA MBTIC MEA AOBK

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY.

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KAAU-BOERHAAVE, ABRAHAM, an able

AAU-BOERHAAVE, ABRAHAM, an able anatomist and ingenious physiologist, born at the Hague in 1715, was the son of a doctor of law and medicine, by a sister of the illustrious Boerhaave. He studied physic at Leyden under Albinus, Van-Royen, and Gaubius; and distinguished himself as a diligent dissector, and an assiduous reader of the ancients. In 1736 he lost his hearing suddenly during the night; which defect was a great inconvenience to him in society, but did not prevent his rising to eminence in his profession. He took the degree of M.D., soon after which he annexed the name of Boerhaave to his family name, according to the desire of his uncle. He was invited to Petersburg in 1740, where he occupied a medical chair in the university, and was made a court physician. In 1748 he was appointed first physician, which post he held till his death, at Moscow, in 1753. He was the author of the following works, "Perspiratio dicta Hippocrati per universum corpus anatomice illustrata," 8vo. 1738: in this treatise he describes with great accuracy all the parts in which both the pulmonary and cuticular perspiration are concerned; and discusses the doctrines of Hippocrates on the subject of this discharge, together with the recent discoveries of Sanctorius. "Impetum faciens dictum Hippocrati per corpus consentiens, observationibus et experimentis passim firmatum," 8vo. 1745: the subject of this piece is, the opinions of the ancients concerning the human soul, the origin of man, the fabric and motion of the muscles, the nature and action of the nerves, the supposed effects of the arterial loops embracing the

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nerves, &c.

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nerves, &c. He also inserted some anatomical papers in the Memoirs of the Petersburg Academy, and published two separate descriptions of monstrous human foetuses. Eloy Dict. Hist. de la Médic. Halleri Bibl. Anat.-A.

KAEMPFER, ENGELBERT, a distinguished traveller, was born, in 1651, at Lemgow, the chief town of the duchy of Lippe, in Westphalia, of which his father was a clergyman. He received a literary education, and at the age of seventeen was sent to the public school or academy of Lunenburg, at which he spent two years. An inclination of seeing various places, which became his ruling passion, then led him to Lubeck, where he prosecuted his studies in the academy, at that time flourishing under professor Nottelmans. Thence he went to Dantzig, where he gave the first public specimen of his acquisitions, by holding a dispute. "De majestatis divisione." He next passed some time at Thorn, which, in 1674, he left for the university of Cracow. There he applied diligently for two years to the study of philosophy, history, and modern languages; in the attainment of the last of which he possessed an extraordinary facility, which was highly useful to him in his travels. He also fitted him self for social intercourse, and was able, by his talents for conversation, to ingratiate himself with such men as prince Alex. Lubomirski, and M. von Hoverbeck, envoy extraordinary from the elector of Brandenburg to the Pelish court. He took the degree of doctor in philosophy at Cracow, and then repaired to Konigsberg. There he abode four years, applying to the study of natural history, and of medicine, which

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he pursued with a professional view. Still unsatiated with knowledge, he made a visit, in 1681, to the university of Upsal, which had risen to reputation chiefly by the labours of the celebrated Olaus Rudbeck. In this place Kaempfer was much distinguished, and his talents and character acquired him the notice of several eminent persons even at Stockholm. Several offers were made to fix him in that country; but his leading propensity induced him to prefer that of the post of secretary of legation to an embassy then preparing by the court of Sweden to those of Russia and Persia. In March, 1683, he set out from Stockholm with the presents destined for the sophi of Persia, and joined the embassador Fabricius, with his suite, at Narva. They made their entry at Moscow in July, and having dispatched their affairs at that court, proceeded by water to Astrakan. They crossed the Caspian sea with great danger, and arrived at Schamaki, the neighbourhood of which afforded many curious observations to our traveller. The embassy reached Ispahan in the beginning of 1684, and employed nearly two years in nego. tiations, during which time Kaempfer made every possible advantage of his situation for acquiring knowledge. When the embassador was about to return, our naturalist declined accompanying him, and engaged himself as chief surgeon to the fleet of the Dutch East-India company, then cruising in the Persian gulph. He left Ispahan in November, 1685, and proceeding by Schiras and the ruins of the ancient Persepolis, arrived at Gombron in December. That unhealthy place had nearly proved fatal to him, and he was detained a long time by sickness. On his convalescence he spent a summer in its neighbourhood, employed in adding to the store of his observations. In June, 1688, he embarked, and after touching at various Dutch settlements on the coasts of Arabia and Malabar, in the island of Ceylon, and the gulph of Bengal, he arrived at Batavia in September, 1689. Being appointed physician to the annual embassy sent by the Dutch company to the perd of Japan, he sailed in May, 1690, and taking Siam in his way, finished his voyage in September His abode in Japan was of two years continuance, affording him time to obtain as-fuck insight: into the natural and political state of that remote country as the singular jealousy of its government, with respect to strangers, would permit. He left it in October, 1692, and returning by Batavia, arrived in Europe in the following year.

In April, 1694, Kaempfer took the degree

of M.D. at Leyden, and, by way of inaugural dissertation, published a "Decade of miscel laneous Observations" relating to medicine and natural history, all of which were republished in his "Amænitates." He than settled in his native country, where the count of Lippe nominated him his body physician; which post, together with the great fame he had acquired, procured him very extensive practice. He complains, indeed, that his occupations were too numerous to allow him to spend the time he would have desired, in putting in order the materials he had collected in the long course of his travels. For the purpose of managing his concerns, and clearing his paternal estate of Steinhoff, near Lemgo, he married in his fortyninth year the daughter of an agent to the court of the elector of Brunswick-Lunenburg. This did not prove a happy connection; and his latter years were clouded with uneasiness. He died, in consequence of repeated attacks of the colic, in November 1716, at the age of sixty-five.

Kaempfer, from the variety of his knowledge and the diligence of his enquiries, has scarcely been surpassed by any traveller in the number and value of the observations which were the fruit of his labours. Of these, however, a large proportion have been lost to the world. The principal work which he gave to the public in his life-time is entitled "Amænitatum Exoticarum Politico-Physico-Medicarum Fasciculi V." 4to. Lemgov. 1712. It contains a variety of curious matter relative to the Persian court and the antiquities of that country, and many circumstances appertaining to the medicine, the economy, and the natural history, of differ ent parts of Asia. One of the fasciculi is entirely employed in the history of the date-palm, and is a

model of perfect description in its kind. The fifth gives a specimen of a Flora Japonica, which made a rich addition to the botany of that period. Many medical facts of importance are detailed in this work, and accurate accounts of several articles of materia medica are for the ́· first time presented to the European reader. Of his posthumous "History of Japan" a copy came into the possession of sir Hans Sloane, which was translated from the original German into English by J. Casp. Scheuchzer, and published at London in 1727, folio; from it a French translation was made. Two MS. of of the same work were purchased from the heirs of his niece, by prof. Dohm of Capel, from which a German edition was made by him, and published at Lemgow in two vols. 4to. 1777, 1779. This is the most complete, and contains matter not to be met with in Scheu

chzer's version. The style of Kaempfer is prolix, and without elegance; but his information is correct and original. Life of Kaempfer, prefixed to Dohm's edit. Halleri Bibl. Botan. Med.-A.

KAHLER, JOHN, a learned German Lutheran divine and professor, was born at Wolmar, a village in the landgraviate of HesseCassel, in the year 1649. He studied successively at Marpurg and at Giessen, and was admitted to the degree of M.A. in the latter university. He gained considerable reputation by introducing the Cartesian philosophy into the schools at Giessen, and teaching it there for some years. In 1677, he was appointed professor extraordinary of metaphysics at Rinteln, where he afterwards filled the mathematical chair; to which, in 1683, was joined that of theology. On his appointment to the professorship last mentioned, he took his degree of doctor of divinity; and after having been six times honoured by the office of rector magnificus of the university, died in 1729. He was the author of numerous dissertations on philosophical, mathematical, and theological subjects, which are enumerated by our authority, and were published in a collective form at Rinteln, in 1710 and 1711, in two vols. Moreri.-M.

KALDI, GEORGE, a Jesuit, whose learning and merits are highly spoken of by his biographers, was a native of Hungary, and born in Tirnaw, about the year 1572. He refused considerable ecclesiastical dignities, and preferred to them a studious life among the followers of Loyola. Having been received into the order at Rome, and returned into his own country, he was banished into Transylvania, in common with the other members of his society, during the civil commotions which at that time agitated the kingdom. Afterwards we learn that he discharged the duty of theological professor in the university of Olmutz; was successively master of the Novices in different places; and filled the posts of superior and rector at Tirnaw. His last retreat was to a college which he built at Presburg, where he died in 1634, when about sixty-two years of age. During several years of his life he was a zealous preacher, and is regarded by the Hungarians as one of the most eloquent pulpit orators of whom their country can boast. A volume of his "Sermons" was published at Presburg, in 1631, folio. what chiefly entitles him to notice in our pages, is his having undertaken and completed a translation of the Bible from the Vulgate into the Hungarian tongue. This work was printed at Vienna, in 1626. Moreri.-M.

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KALM, PETER, a traveller and naturalist, was a native of Sweden, and was educated for the ecclesiastical profession. The lectures of Linnæus at the university of Upsal, however, gave him an attachment to natural history; and in travels through different provinces of Sweden, from 1740 to 1745, he had discovered several new species of plants, and distinguished himself as a minute and accurate observer. When a proposal was made by Linnæus, in 1745, to send a person on a naturalist's tour to North America, Kalm, then professor of economy in the university of Abo, was fixed upon; and after a fund had been raised, by the contribu tions of various public bodies, for defraying his expences, he embarked at Gothenburg in the close of 1747. He landed first in England, where he remained till August, 1748, making. observations in agriculture and natural history. He sailed for Philadelphia in that month, and employed the remainder of that year, and the years 1749 and 1750, in travels through the provinces of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Canada, with the districts inhabited by the Iroquois, and other Indian tribes. He left America in the beginning of 1751, and reached his native country in the course of the summer. The result of these travels was given to the public in the Swedish language, in three vols.. 8vo. 1753-61, which were translated first into German, and then into English, by J. Reinhold Forster, in 1770. Like most of his travelling. countrymen, Kalm is a dry and accurate describer of every thing new to him, whether important. or trifling, with equal minuteness. Utility, however, seems to have been his leading object, and he brought back some valuable information to his countrymen, and was the introducer of some new subjects of culture adapted to northern climates.

He afterwards returned to Abo, where he was made professor of natural history, and published a great many detached dissertations in the Swedish and Latin languages, on economical and botanical topics. He made, at his own expence, an extensive tour into Russia, which has not been published, though a Swedish writer has been supposed to have taken much from the manuscript. He died at Abo, in 1790. Stoever's Life of Linnæus. Halleri Bibl. Botan. -A.

KANT, IMMANUEL, a celebrated German professor of logic, metaphysics, and moral philosophy, and founder of a new philosophical sect, was born at Konigsberg, in Prussia, in the year 1724. His parents being in humble. circumstances, he was instructed in reading

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and writing at the charity school in his parish; whence he was sent, at the expence of his maternal uncle, a wealthy shoemaker, to the college Fredericianum. In the year 1740, he was removed to the university, where he pursued his studies with great zeal and diligence, and attended lectures on philosophy, the mathematics, and theology. It was his object to acquire universal information; but if he had any favourite study at the university, it was that of the mathematics, and the branches of natural philosophy immediately connected with them. When he had completed his academical studies, he accepted the situation of tutor in a clergyman's family at some distance from Konigsberg; and afterwards a similar one at Armsdorf, which he in a short time exchanged for the same employment in the family of count Kaiserlingk. He discharged his duty as a tutor, according to his own confession since, by no means to his satisfaction; being too much occupied with acquiring and digesting knowledge in his own mind, to be able to communicate the rudiments of it to others. After spending nine years in these situations, he returned to Konigsberg, where he maintained himself by private instruction; and though his emoluments were but inconsiderable, yet his frugality, which nearly bordered on parsimony, enabled him to live at his native college with credit and respect, without any public salary or appointment. In the year 1746, when only twenty-two years of age, he had begun his literary career, by publishing Thoughts on the Estimation of the Animal Powers, with Strictures on the Proofs advanced by Leibnitz and other Mathematicians on this Point, &c." 8vo. ; and in 1754, he published, "An Examination of the Prize Question of the Berlin Society--whether the Earth in turning round its Axis, by which the Succession of Day and Night was produced, had undergone any Change since its Origin? What could be the Causes; and how we could be assured of it?" The judicious manner in which he treated these subjects, acquired him the reputation of a promising mathematician and natural philosopher, and paved the way to his long desired promotion to the degree of M.A. which was conferred upon him in 1755. While he had been engaged in the employment of private tuition, besides his favourite pursuits of mathematics and natural philosophy, he occasionally indulged in metaphysical speculations; and he employed his leisure hours in the acquisition of modern languages, especially the French and English, which latter he learned without a teacher, chiefly with a view to ex

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amine the merits of Locke, Berkley, Reid, Hume, and Beattie. After investigating the principles of these writers, he was disappointed in his researches after what he conceived to be a consistent analysis of the powers and faculties of the human mind, or, what is commonly termed a system of metaphysics, and suspended his enquiries on this subject for some years.: Having now become a graduate in the university, he entered upon the task of delivering half-yearly courses of lectures on pure and practical mathematics; which he discharged to his own infinite delight, and the enthusiastic approbation of crowded audiences, for fifteen years, annually publishing something on the abstruse sciences, which served to establish the fame that he had already acquired.

In the year 1755, he was on the point of sending into the world his "Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens, or, an Essay on the Constitution and Mechanical Structure of the whole Globe, according to the Newtonian System," when he was prevented by the failing of the publisher, and the circumstance of all the M.S.S. in his hands, as well as his effects, being put under seal. Owing to this event, six years afterwards, the famous. Lambert unintentionally plucked the laurels of invention from the brow of our philosopher, by advancing the very same principles, and having the credit of originality. The justness. of Kant's Theory, was, thirty years afterwards, evinced by the practical investigations of Herschel. In the same year he gave to the public,

An Examination of the Question, whether the Earth decayed?" In 1756, he furnished the first specimen of his metaphysical talents, in "Principiorum primorum Cognitionis metaphysicæ nova Dilucidatio," and "Dissertatio de Principiis primis Cognitionis humanæ," both in 4to.; which were succeeded by his " Monodologia Physica," 4to.; "A History and Philosophical Description of the Earthquake in 1755" 4to.; and in another work, further considerations on this subject; and "Remarks. for the Elucidation of the Theory of the Winds." In 1757, he published "A Sketch. and Annunciation of Lectures on Physical Geography" and in the following year, "NewPrinciples of Motion and Rest, and the Results connected with them in the Fundamentals. of Natural Philosophy," 8vo.: a small work, which, at the time, excited much notice, and was afterwards inserted more at large in his. later writings. In 1759, he published, flections upon Opticism," 4to. with which, likewise, lectures were announced; in 1762

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