Vampirisme. BILFINGER (Georg Bernhard). Elementa... Lot n° 15

[Vampirism]. BILFINGER (Georg Bernhard). Elementa physices. Accedunt eiusdem Meditationes mathematico-physicae in Commentariis Acad. scient. Imper. Petropolit. obviae cum Disquisitione de vampyris. Lipsiae, impensis Richterianis, 1742. In-8, [8] f., 272 p., pl., stapled, mute cover, with all margins (paper damage on the back, cover soiled, stains and small holes in the margin of the title). Rare first edition of this collection of works by the German philosopher and mathematician G.B. Bilfinger (1693-1750) which includes a chapter on vampirism. The illustration relating to physics consists of 9 folding plates engraved on copper. The historian K.M. Wilson points out that from 1732 to 1742, several scientific and medical treatises were published in Germany and Austria, following official reports of cases of vampirism observed in the Serbian district of Graditz ("The History of the Word Vampyre", in: The Vampire: a Casebook, Madison, 1998, p.6, and note 17 p.10-11). See also: P.J. Bräunlein, "The frightening borderlands of Enlightenment: The vampire problem", in: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 43(3), 2012, p.710-719, who cites Bilfinger's work in the context of events on the borders of the Habsburg Empire between 1724 and 1760, which he describes as an "epidemic of vampirism". Copy as issued, uncut.