Antedating of "Biology"

[Fred Shapiro]

biology (OED 1819, in another sense 1813)

1799 Thomas Beddoes _Contributions to physical and medical knowledge,
principally from the West of England_ 4 (Eighteenth Century Collections
Online)  Physiology therefore -- or more strictly _biology_ -- by which I
mean _the doctrine of the living system in all its states_, appears to be
the foundation of ethics and pneumatology.

Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
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