Hales, STEPHEN

Hales, STEPHEN, natural philosopher, was born at Becketbourn, Kent, 7th September 1677. He entered Bene't (now Corpus Christi) College, Cambridge, in 1696, was elected Fellow in 1702, and having taken holy orders was presented about 1710 to the perpetual curacy of Teddington, in Middlesex, where he died, 4th January 1761. His first important publication was Vegetable Staticks, or Experiments on the Sap of Vegetables (1727), which may be regarded as the starting-point of our true knowledge of vegetable physiology. In Hæmatostaticks (1733), a second part of this work treating of the circulation of the blood, Hales gives results obtained by experimental methods of investigation like those now in use in studying physiology. Besides other independent works, including The Means of Dissolving the Stone in the Bladder, he contributed numerous memoirs to the Philosophical Transactions on Ventilation, on Electricity, on the Analysis of Air, &c. His ventilating-machines were introduced into the London prisons. His improvements in the mode of collecting gases did much to facilitate the subsequent labours of Black, Priestley, and Lavoisier. He also invented machines for distilling sea-water, preserving meat, &c.