Letter 3298

Breyne sent some recently published treatises to Dr Sherard, who is supposed to pass them on to Sloane. He thanks Sloane for his letter of September 20, the Philosophical Transactions, the late Dr Hook’s book, and his comments on smallpox inoculation, which convinced Breyne to have his children inoculated. He hopes to acquire the works of Mr Petiver. Breyne puts himself at the service of Dr Scheuchzer. He warns Sloane about the authenticity of natural historical specimens and claims to have been duped several times. A portion of the letter is in Latin. One of the books Breyne has sent outlines the ‘Generation of Amber’. He is going to collect plants for Sloane and edit a new edition of his father’s book. Breyne discusses some ‘Plates relating to Anatomy’. Johann Philipp Breyne (1680-1764) was a German botanist, zoologist, and entomologist known primarily for his work on the Polish cochineal, or Porphyrophora polonica, used in red dye production. He became a fellow of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina in 1715 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Philipp_Breyne).