Æpinus, Francis-Marie-Ulrick-Theodore

, a German physician of considerable eminence, was born at Rostock, Dec. 13, 1724, and died at Dorpt, in Livonia, Aug. 1802. He is best known to the learned world by his “Tentamen theoriae Electricitatis et Magnetismi,” Petersburgh, 4to; of which M. Haiiy published an abridgement and analysis, Paris, 1787, 8vo. In 1762 he also published “Reflections on the distribution of Heat on the sur-< face of the Earth,” translated afterwards into French by Raoult de Rouen, and wrote several papers in the memoirs of the academy of Petersburgh. He was likewise among the first who made correct experiments on the electricity of the tourmalin, and published the result in a small volume, 8vo, Petersburgh, 1762. His reputation has been much greater on the continent, than among the philosophers of our country; probably owing to the very slight and almost unintelligible account which Dr. Priestley has given of his “Tentamen,” in his history of Electricity. The hon. Mr. Cavendish has done it more justice in the Philosophical Transactions, vol. LXI, where his own excellent dissertation is an extensive and accurate explanation of JEpinus’s theory. But a more elaborate analysis has since appeared in Dr. Gleig’s supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, to which we refer our readers. ²