Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.15885

    Experiment against the powers of the unicorn

    Date
    30 September 1672
    Creator
    Salomon Reisel (1624 - 1701, German) , Physician
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p3
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 193mm
    width (page): 154mm
    Subject
    Description
    A figure from a letter by Salomon Reisel, chief physician to Frederick Casimir, Count of Hanau, dated 30 September 1672. It illustrates the antipathy of the unicorn towards the obulus (ancient Greek coin) and its sympathy for bread crumbs, which Reisel doubts. The letter was read to the Royal Society on 11 December 1672.
    Transcription
    Nulla Unicornu cum obolo Antipathia, neque com mica panis sympathia
    Transcribed by the Making Visible project
    Object history
    At the meeting of the Royal Society on 11 December 1672, ‘Mr. Schroter produced two letters in Latin to the Society, delivered to him lately in Germany, by one Dr. Salomon Reisel, archiater to Frederic Casimir count of Hanaw, the one dated 20 September, the other 1st October, 1672; the former containing a relation concerning many capital letters found in both sides of a piece of beech-tree, cleft asunder, between the pith and bark; the latter discoursing about some vulgar errors. Which letters were ordered to be entered in the Letter-book’ (Birch 3:69).

    A similar figure is printed in Miscellanea Curiosa, 2 (1671), Observatio 111, p. 184.
    Associated place
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          > Germany
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