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LISTER, MARTIN (christened Radclive, Buckinghamshire,
England, 11 April 1639; d. Epsom, England,
2 February 1712), zoology, geology.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
should be looked upon as a separate work. See G. L. Wilkins,
Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural
History, 3, no. 4 (1957), 196-205. A 3rd ed., edited by
G. Huddesford, was published at Oxford in 1770; and a
4th ed., L. W. Dillwyn, ed., at Oxford in 1823, with a
correlation of Lister's arrangement with the Linnaean
system. This last ed. bears the words editio tertia.
Exercitatio anatomica in qua de cochleis maxime terrestribus
et limacibus agitur (London, 1694).
Exercitatio anatomica altera de buccinis fluviatilibus et
marinis (London, 1695) was issued bound with Exercitatio
medicinalis de variolis. Some copies of pt. I were issued
separately as Dissertatio anatomica altera ... (London,
1695), and pt. II was issued as Disquisitio medicinalis de
variolis (London, 1696).
Conchyliorum bivalvium utriusque aquae exercitatio anatomica
tertia huic accedit dissertatio medicinalis de calculo
humano (London, 1696), with the two Exercitatio anatomica,
was intended as an anatomical supplement to the
Historia conchyliorum.
Sex exercitationes medicinales de quibusdam morbis
chronicis ... (London, 1694; a rev. and enl. ed. published
as Octo exercitationes medicinales, 1697).
A Journey to Paris in the Year 1698 (London, 1699) had
2 further eds. in the same year. Repr. in Pinkerton's General
Collection of the Best and Most Interesting Voyages
and Travels ... (London, 1809); and there is a rev. ed.
by George Henning, An Account of Paris at the Close of
the Seventeenth Century ... (London, 1823). Henning's
ed. was trans. into French as Voyage de Lister à Paris ...
(Paris, 1873), and there is a facs. repr. of the 3rd ed. with
notes by R. P. Stearns (Urbana, Ill., 1967).
Other works are S. sanctorii de statica medicina ... cum
commentario (London, 1701; new ed., 1728); Commentariolus
in Hippocratem (London, 1702), repub. as part of
Hippocratis aphorismi cum commentariolo (London, 1703);
De opsoniis et condimentis sive arte coquininaria (London,
1705; 2nd ed., 1709), Lister's ed. of Apicius Caelius' work;
and Dissertatio de humoribus in qua veterum ac recentiorum
medicorum ac philosophorum opiniones et sententiae examinantur
(London, 1709; new ed., Amsterdam, 1711)--“As
full and compleat a system of the animal oeconomie ...
as I could contrive.”
Lister's De scarabaeis Britannicus was printed as part of
John Ray's publication of Francis Willughby's Historia
insectorum (London, 1710).
Lister was a frequent contributor to the Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society, submitting papers on
insects, spiders, parasites, mollusks, birds, plants, physiology
(particularly on the lymphatics), medicine, geology,
meteorology and archaeology. There are in all 51 papers
by Lister, from vol. 4 (1669) to vol. 22 (1701). In addition,
31 letters sent to Lister were passed on by him for publication
in the Transactions in the same period.
The Lister MSS at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, form
a set of 40 vols. of mixed letters and papers. The letters,
although from a large number of correspondents, are
incomplete--containing, for example, not a single letter
from John Ray. In general, they are of slight scientific
interest. The other papers include drafts of parts of his
published works; sketches for unfinished geological works;
papers on fossils, geology, and barnacles; diaries and
account books; and so on. Letters to or from Lister can
be found in MSS Ashmole 1816, 1829, and 1830 (particularly
concerning Lhwyd) and in MSS Smith 51 and 52
(Thomas Smith, the Cotton librarian, was arranging
Lister's papers but died with the work incomplete). There
are a few letters in the British Museum, MSS Sloane and
Stowe. The correspondence between Lister and Ray has
been published in E. R. Lankester, ed., The Correspondence
of John Ray (London, 1848); and R. T. Gunther, ed., The
Further Correspondence of John Ray (London, 1928).
Letters to and from Robert Plot and Edward Lhwyd have
been published by Gunther in Early Science in Oxford,
vols. XII and XIV (Oxford, 1939 and 1945).
II. SECONDARY LITERATURE.
There is no full-length study
of Lister's life or works. Of several articles in English
local journals, the only one which can be recommended is
Davies, in Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 2 (1873),
297-320.
The eds. of A Journey to Paris by Henning and Stearns
(see above) both contain a biographical introduction. The
author of this article has a thesis on Lister in progress at
the University of Leeds.