Comte de Tressan - Essai sur le fluide électrique, considéré comme agent universel - 1786

Original edition of this classic treatise, which is among the earliest in French on electricity.
Posthumously published by the family of the Count of Tressan (1705-1783), who since the 1740s conducted important work on the subtle fluid known as Electricity, which earned him a place in the Academy of Sciences in 1749.

Count de Tressan, a lieutenant general, writer, and physicist, considers electricity to be a 'universal agent,' even in its medical applications. Demonstrating both scientific knowledge and philosophical readings, the work draws on the research of contemporary astronomers, geologists, and doctors, as well as on Holy Scriptures, and the author's own observations and experiments, to show that 'electricity is a kind of Proteus that changes form every moment,' in which the universe is immersed. The experiments with electricity 'shed new light on the entire mechanism of nature; we have grasped and subdued the most active and subtle fluid that exists in nature. It is a thread for general physics; it must never be abandoned.'


This book... is the first memoir where this subject, then very new, was presented in France in a satisfactory manner. The author, said CONDORCET, had somewhat given in to his imagination; but it served him well, as he predicted some of the discoveries that have been made since.

Discursive work in which electricity is connected with the processes of the animal and vegetable worlds as well as with most natural phenomena from lightning and volcanic action to the aurora borealis and zodiacal light.

Set in a time-binding binding with marbled brown calfskin, the spine decorated with gilt-embossed panels and fine gold tooling, with a gilt title, and red edges. The copy is in very good overall condition, with some wear to the leather, a missing fragment of the headband, and a partially cracked hinge on volume 1. The interior is fresh and clean, in excellent condition of freshness, free from foxing or with very rare instances.

Author: Comte de Tressan
Essay on the electric fluid considered as a universal agent
EDITOR: P., Buisson, 1786, 2 volumes in 8vo. Volume 1: 80 pages, 396 pages, 1 unnumbered leaf (table); Volume 2: (2), 487 pages, 4 unnumbered pages (table + approval and privilege). Complete.

Subject: Important classical treatise on electricity by the Count of Tressan, 1786. EO: Essay on the electric fluid.