ilia or Friendship of the
Whole World," the subtitle of which is "The Conciliation of the
Opinions of Disagreeing Philosophers." This was published at Siena in
1647 in quarto. He issued a small volume of "Rules for the Cure of
Contagious Diseases," Rome, 1656. His great work is the _Rei Medicae
Prodromi_, or introduction to medical science, which has for subtitle
"Treatise on the Principal Problems of Physiology."

A distinguished scientist of the seventeenth century who found Rome a
refuge and place of opportunity for his studies at this time when
beset with difficulties elsewhere, was Borelli, the first to apply
mechanical principles to the explanation of physiological problems in
his work _De Motu Animalium_. Borelli had been a professor of science
in Messina, visited Florence for a time in order to be with Galileo
shortly before the great astronomer's death, accepted the call of the
Duke of Tuscany to Pisa, where he had as colleagues Redi and Malpighi,
with whom he founded the Accademia del Cimento. He left Pisa, not long
after, to return to Messina, whence however he had to flee, having
fallen under the suspicion of taking part in a conspiracy against the
government, and now found a refuge in Rome. He was pensioned by Queen
Christina of Sweden, who was then living in the Papal Capital, but
after a time he retired to the monastery of San Pantaleone in Rome,
where two years later he died. Professor Foster, in his Lectures on
the History of Physiology, which were delivered at a number of
universities in this country and subsequently published in the
Cambridge Biological Series, devotes a whole lecture, some thirty
pages, to "Borelli and the Influence of the New Physics." He does not
hesitate to say at the conclusion of the lecture that "when we
consider the effect which a perusal of Borelli's book has upon the
reader now, we can easily understand how he was the founder of a great
school which flourished long after him. He was so successful in his
mechanical solutions of physiological problems that many coming after
him readily rushed to the conclusion that all such problems could be
solved by the same method. And as is often the case the less qualified
alike as regards mechanical as well as physiological knowledge and
insight to follow in Borelli's path were the men of succeeding times
the more loudly did they often proclaim the might of Borelli's
method." It has always been thus and doubtless always will be. The
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