KEPLER, Johannes.

Ad Vitellionem Paralipomena, quibus Astronomiae Pars Optica traditur...de modo visionis, & humorum oculi usu, contra Opticos & Anatomicos.

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Woodcut device on title, one engraved plate showing various anatomical sections of the eye, numerous woodcut diagrams in the text, & two folding printed tables. 8 p.l., 449, [18] pp. 4to, antique reversed calf (some foxing & browning throughout as is usual). Frankfurt: C. Marnius & Heirs of J. Aubrius, 1604. First edition of Kepler's first important optical work and a highly significant book in the history of ophthalmology. This is a good and large copy. It is divided into two parts. The first part -- the "Appendix to Witelo" -- is a treatise on vision and the human eye in which is shown for the first time how the retina is essential to sight, the part the lens plays in refraction, and that the convergence of luminous rays before reaching the retina is the cause of myopia. Kepler describes the nature of central and peripheral vision and demonstrates the part that the vitreous plays in keeping the retina taut. Part Two -- the "Astronomica pars Optica" -- comprises six astronomical chapters. They "include not only a discussion of parallax, astronomical refraction, and his eclipse instruments but also the annual variation in the apparent size of the sun. Since the changing size of the solar image is inversely proportional to the sun's distance, this key problem was closely related to his planetary theory; unfortunately, his observational results were not decisive."­D.S.B., VIII, pp. 298-99. This book "contains the first correct physiological explanation of the defects of sight, with a theory of vision, the first suggestion of the undulatory theory of light, an approximately correct formula of refraction (pointing out the relation between the sine of incident and refracted rays), the first announcement of one of the principal axioms of photometry, his method of calculating eclipses, still in use, etc. etc."­Sotheran 10,097. Bookplate of Marcel Destombes. Caspar 18. Cinti 13. Zinner 3993.

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