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Stephenson:Neal:Quicksilver:35:…Sir John Floyer just invented it…(Alan Sinder)

From the Quicksilver Metaweb.

This is a page for Sir John Floyer

Stephensonia

Enoch Root's greetings have not gotten easier on his victims. First poor Clarke the Apothecary near spills a bucket of piss when Enoch cheerfully informs him to save it up. Then 58 years later, Enoch almost delivers a heart attack to Daniel Waterhouse along with Princess Caroline's letter.

Authored entries

Sir John Floyer, M.D.

A snippet of interest to us readers of the Baroque Cycle —

“… Sir John Floyer: -- The significance of the work is his insistence on the value of accurate measurement of pulse rates, so that, as he says, "We may know the natural pulse and the excesses and defects from this in diseases." Sir John Floyer has been described as "fantastic, whimsical, pretentious, research-minded, and nebulous." In 1697 appeared An Enquiry into the Right Use and Abuses of the Hot, Cold and Temperate Baths in England , known in later editions as The History of Cold Bathing. … Floyer was the first physician to time the pulse in his routine clinical practice, and he records scores of observations in which he tried to establish relationships between pulse rates and many other measurements, such as respiration rate, temperature, barometric readings, age, sex, and season, and even the latitude where the readings were taken.  To begin with, for his timing device he used either the minute hand of a pendulum clock or a sea minute glass.  He then asked Samuel Watson, a watch and clock maker who started his career in Coventry and then moved to Long Acre in London, to adapt a watch for the purpose of timing the pulse.  The physician's pulse watch incorporated a second hand and also a special lever by means of which the mechanism could be stopped.  Both these devices were horological innovations.  Floyer used this watch as a precision instrument for clinical measurement, checking that it remained accurate by comparing it with the minute glass which he kept at home as his standard. … ”

!! POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD !!

Speculation follows

If Enoch is right about Daniel's knowledge of Floyer, then Daniel is showing an interest in horological advancement. Doctor Waterhouse also kept abreast of officers of note in the Royal Navy. We can see Daniel will arrive in London just to hear of the Longitude Prize, and to see his tasked peacemaking between Leibniz and Newton will be for naught.