Only edition.
Eusebio Sguario or Squario was a doctor also interested in physics; generally recognized as the first Italian author to write about electricity. This work, the first he wrote, was followed by a book on electricity applied to medicine, another on earthquakes and others on purely medical topics. The occasion for this work was the aurora borealis observed in Venice in the last days of 1737, a very rare phenomenon in those latitudes. Sguario denies that the aurora borealis can be a phenomenon linked to a sort of combustion and instead believes that its origin is due to the refraction of the sun's rays by a sort of corpuscle present in the atmosphere. He also explains the black halo found in the center of some aurora borealis by the total absorption of light by some of these corpuscles; in this way the scientist rejects the theories on the origin of the northern lights of some authors, both ancient and modern. A list of northern lights at the end of the book improves on the famous one published by D'Ortous de Mairan in his work of 1733. Ronalds , p. 473; Riccardi I (2), 455.