It has not indeed proved practically available; but his system of calculating cometary perturbations by means of "mechanical quadratures" has formed the startingpoint of all subsequent researches on the subject.
This law has important ethical and political bearings; but in the province of disease this advance of what may be compared to the interlocking of points and signals has had wide influence not only in altering our conceptions of disease, but also in enlarging our views of all perturbations of function.
The manuscript residue includes papers on atmospheric refraction (dated 1755), on the motion of Mars as affected by the perturbations of Jupiter and the Earth (1756), and on terrestrial magnetism (1760 and 1762).
This is not inconsistent with the law of gravitation, for such estimates as have been made of planetary perturbations due to stars give results which are insignificant in comparison with quantities at present measurable.
As practically attacked it consists in the problem of determining the perturbations or disturbances in the motion of one of the bodies around the principal or central body, produced by the attraction of the third.
