Researching Johann Sulzer

He studied medicine at the University of Tübingen and later started a medical practice in Winterthur. As a physician he distinguished himself in his work with smallpox vaccinations. In the field of entomology, he was the author of: * Die Kennzeichen der Insekten, nach Anleitung des Königl. Schwed. Ritters und Leibarzts Karl Linnaeus, (...) (1761) – The characteristics of insects, according to the instructions of Carl Linnaeus.* Abgekürzte Geschichte der Insecten nach dern Linaeischen System (1776) – Abbreviated history of insects according to the Linnaean System.

Sulzer is best known as the subject of an anecdote in the history of the development of the battery. In 1752, Sulzer happened to put the tip of his tongue between pieces of two different metals whose edges were in contact. He exclaimed, "a pungent sensation, reminds me of the taste of green vitriol when I placed my tongue between these metals." He thought the metals set up a vibratory motion in their particles which excited the nerves of taste. The event became known as the "battery tongue test": the saliva serves as the electrolyte carrying the current between two metallic electrodes.

His General Theory of the Fine Arts has been called "probably the most influential aesthetic compendium of the closing years of the eighteenth century". In it, he "extended Baumgarten's approach into an even more psychological theory that the primary object of enjoyment in aesthetic experience is the state of one's own cognitive condition." Kant had respectfully disagreed with Sulzer's metaphysical hopes. Kant wrote: "I cannot share the opinion so frequently expressed by excellent and thoughtful men (for instance Sulzer) who, being fully conscious of the weakness of the proofs hitherto advanced, indulge in a hope that the future would supply us with evident demonstrations of the two cardinal propositions of pure reason, namely, that there is a God, and that there is a future life. I am certain, on the contrary, that this will never be the case…."