Section of the History of Medicine' 24'l

Notes on the Early History of Microscopy.

By CHARLES SINGER, M.D.
IN view of the immense interest in microscopic investigation
evinced during the last fifty years, it is remarkable that no exhaustive
history of the instrument has yet appeared. Many points in the earlier
history of the subject remain doubtful, and in spite of the helpful essays,
of P. Harting1 in lIolland, of Landsberg2 and Petri3 in Germany, and
of Vincenzo Rocchi 4 in Italy, there are still gaps in existing accounts.
English literature on the subject is particularly scanty.5 We have,
therefore, endeavoured in the following pages to place before the
reader a short and consecutive account, giving especial attention to
the recorded observations of- some of the earliest workers.

(I) THE SIMPLE MICROSCOPE.

The use of lenses may be certainly traced back to the thirteenth
century, and is not improbably of far earlier origin. It seems likely
that spheres of glass filled with water were used as miagnifiers by the
gem cutters of antiquity, whose work could hardly have been accom-
plished without some aid to vision. Pliny6 mentions that burning-
glasses were used by physicians as cauteries. " Letters, however small
and dim," says Seneca7 (c. A.D. 63), " are comparatively large and distinct
when seen through a glass globe filled with water." The Indian drams
"Sakuntala" 8 of Kiilidasa also distinctly refers to burning-glasses.
I P. Harting, " Het Mikroskoop, deszelfs gebruik, geschiedenis en tegenwoordige toestand,'"

3 vols., Utrecht, 1848-50.

2 C. Landsberg, Central Zeitung f. Optik u. Mekanik, 1890, p. 272 (unfinished).

s B. J. Petri, " Das Mikroskop," Berl., 1896. Historical introduction.

4 Vincenzo Rocchi, " Appunti di Storia Critica del Microscopio," Rivista di Storia Critica
delle Scienze Mediche e Naturali, January, 1913, anno iv, p. 1.
s There are, however, the Cantor Lectures of John Mayall, published in the Journal of
the Society of Arts for 1886. Professor L. C. Miall has also dealt with much learning on the
classical microscopists in his work on " The Early Naturalists," Lond., 1912.
6 C. Plinius
Secundus, " Naturalis Historia," ixxvi, p. 67 and elsewhere.
7Lucius Annaeus Seneca, " Quaestiones Naturales," book i, ch. vi.
s Kdlidasai, " Sakuntali," act ii. Orientalists usually date this work between A.D. 300
and A.D. 600.

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248 Singer: -Notes ont the Early History of Microscopy
The general principles of reflection with some idea of the refraction
of light, and notably the optical properties of curved mirrors, were
comprehended by Euclid (or at least by a writer using his name) in
the third century B.C. as well as by the mathematician Ptolemy, in the
second century A.D. The knowledge of these writers was handed on
to mediaeval Europe by the Arab, Alhazen (died 1038), who developed
the ideas of his predecessors as applied to curved mirrors in consider-
able detail and with great mathematical skill. Alhazen was aware of
the action of reflecting surfaces, formed by the rotation of a conic
section, and he was, therefore, able accurately to project miiagnified
images.' His work was familiar to at least two thirteenth century
writers on optics, Vitello or Witelo, who attempted to use segments
of glass balls to get a better view of slmall objects, and Roger Bacon,
who had a clear conception of the simple microscope and of the possi-
bility of bringing distant objects near and of indefinitely magnifying
minute objects, by giving suitable direction to refracted rays and by
the use of appropriate media.2
In Europe the invention of convex glasses for use as spectacles
is attributed to Salvino d'Amarto degli Armati, of Florence, and to
Alessandro de Spina, of Pisa, about the year 1300.3 The first
mnention of these instruments is, however, said to be by Bernard de
Gordon (died c. 1307) in his "Lilium Medicinae." It is remarkable,
although fully in accord with what we know of the absence of
The earliest printed edition of Alhazen's "1 Thesaurus Opticae " is the Latin translation,
probably by Gerard of Creniona, of 1542. Another edition, combined with the " Optics " of
Vitello, appeared in 1572. For an analysis of the mathematical knowledge of Alhazen, see'
MIoritz Cantor, "VVorlesungen iiber Geschichte der Mathematik," Leipz., 1880, i, p. 677.
2 For Roger Bacon's knowledge of optics see " The ' Opus Niajus ' of Roger Bacon, with
Introduction," by J. H. Bridges, Oxf., 1897, p. lxix ff., and parts iv and v of the " Opus
M1ajus " itself. Also E. Wiedemann and S. Vogl in " Roger Bacon, Essays .... collected
and edited by A. G. Little," Oxford, 1914.
3 See
Horner, " Ueber Brillen aus alter und neuer Zeit," 1885; P. Pansier, "Histoire des
Lunettes," Par., 1901; E. Bock, " Die Brille und Ihre Geschichte," Vienna, 1903; Du Bois-
Raymond, " Zur Geschichte der Glass Linsen,"' 1905; Hirschberg, in " Geschichte der Augen-
heilkunde," Leipz., 1906, Buch ii, Teil 2; B. Laufer, in " Mitteilungen zur Geschichte der
Medizin und Naturwissenschaften, 1907, vi, p. 379; E. H. Oppenheimer, " Die Erfindung der
Brille," in Zentralzeit. f. Optik u. Mechanik, 1908, p. 13; R. Greeff, "Die ailtesten uns
erhaltenen Brillen," in Arch. f. Ophthal., Wiesb., 1912, lxxii, pp. 44-51. The role of Salvino
d'Amarto and Alessandro de Spina has been recently rediscussed by Vincenzo Rocchi,
" Appunti di Storia Critica del Microscopio," in the Rivista di Storia Critica delle S&ienze
Mediche e Naturali, January, 1913, anno iv, No. 1; p. 4 if., .and by G. H. Oliver, in the
Brit. Med. JTuurn., 1913. It is alleged that, among the Chinese, spectacles were already
being used in the thirteenth century. See, however, Hirschberg inI "Mitteilungen zur
Geschichte der Medizin," 1907, vi, p. 550.
1 Written about 1300. First printed, Venice, 1496.

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 Section of the Histor-y of Mledicine 249
mediaeval interest in "phenomena," that such magnifying lenses do
not seem to have been used for the investigation of Nature.
In the sixteenttl century, however, curiosity in scientific matters
began to assert itself. That universal genius, Leonardo da Vinci
(1452-1519), had already investigated some of the effects of concave, as
well as of convex, glasses,1 while those interested in alchemy frequently
used flasks filled with water, concave mirrors or else glass balls to con-
centrate rays of the sun.2 Moreover, some of the optical properties
of lenses were enunciated by Maurolico3 (1494-1575), and later by

FIG. 1.
Descartes' diagram of a simple microscope from his II Dioptrique " of 1637.

Kepler4 (1571-1630). Long before the dawn of the seventeenth century

the principle of the lens was both comprehended and applied to
scientific matters by the Englishmen, Leonard Digges and his son
Thomas, and by the Italian, Giambattista Porta.
See Otto Werner, "Zur Physik Leonardo da Vincis," Berl., 1911, p. 142.
2?See, e.g., Conrad Gesner's " Thesaurus Euonymi Philiatri de Remediis secretis," Zurich,
1554, p. 100.
3 Francesco Maurolico, " Photismi de lumine et umbra ad perspectivam radiorum inci-
dentium facientes," Venice, 1575.
4 Johannes Kepler, " Astronomiae Pars Optica," 1604, and " Dioptrice," Augsburg, 1611.

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250 Singer: Notes on the Early History of Microscopy
Interest in the minute structur,e of natural objects appears to have
especially developed towards the end of the sixteenth' and during the
first third of the seventeenth century. Thus, it is likely that the
naturalist Thomas Mouffet had used magnifying glasses for his
researches on scabies as early as the year 1590,1 and in 1637 Descartes
described in his "Dioptrique" a somewhat elaborated form of the
unilenticular microscope, with which rays of light are focused on the

^ B!

FIG. 2.
Kircher's diagram of a simple microscope (upper figure) from his "Ars Magna
Lucis " of 1646, p. 835. The insect to be examined is placed on the glass plate
at c and illuminated by the candle D, the lens being at the opposite end, E,
of the tube A B.

object by means of a concave mirror. There is a central transparent

area in the mirror behind which the lens is placed (fig. 1).
With the process of development of the compound microscope we
shall deal in the next section. It is here sufficient to say that the
simple microscope was a natural development of the lens, but that
' See his " Insectorum sive minimorum animalium theatrum," Lond., 1634. Posthumously
edited by T. T. de Mayerne.

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 a.-f;} .
::- ;X-
Section of the History of Medicine
even early microscopic pioneers, such as Fontana and Borel, availed
themselves of the increased magnifying power produced by the com-
pound system. With the iinprovement in the grinding of glasses,
however, workers avoided the chroinatic aberration and extremely small
field of the compound instrument by reverting to the single lens. It
was, indeed, mainly with such simple microscopes that the early
historic microscopic discoveries were achieved.
The earliest microscopes consisted of a short tube of opaque material,
with a lens at one end, and at the other a flat glass plate on which the

... ... ...t _ -_

¢§ *
:>5!::

object to be examined was placed. Such simple instruments were

FIG. 3.
Kircher's "Smicroscopium parastaticum."

sometimes spoken of as "Vitrea pulicaria," or "Vitrea muscaria,"

from their use in the examination of small insects. Subsequently
they came to be known as "Engyoscopes," and are spoken of as
childish instruments, "Microscopia ludicra," as opposed to the com-
pound " Microscopia seria." We give a figure of an instrument of this
type as at first used by Athanasius Kircher (fig. 2). By 1663 well-made
instruments of this form were in common use in Holland. Thus at

'JFohannes Zahn, " Oculus Artificialis," Herbiroli, 1685, iiiL, p. 109.

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251
252 Singer: NVotes ont the Early History of Microscopy
Leyden in that year Isaac Voss, of Hamburg, showed Monconys his
mlicroscope, "which is but a minute hemispherical lens, fixed in a small
piece of wood, which is let into a little black table. The hollow for the
eve is pierced by a very small hole."' A slight advance on this form
wasllater adopted by Kircher. He had a series of objects mnounted

FIG. 4.
One of Leeuwenhoeck's miicroscopes. It consists merely of a metal plate
(shown in detail in fig. 8) pierced by a small hole into which a minute lens (L)
is fitted. This plate fits on a frame (shown in detail in fig. 9) into which a
tube (fig. 13) containing a small live eel is placed. By adjusting screws the tail
of the eel can be brought into focus, and the capillary circulation examined.
Theapparatus is shown fitted up in fig. 10.

upon a rotating disc, which thus brought one after the other in front of
the leye. This instrument he speaks of as the " Smicroscopium paras-
taticum " (figr. 3)*2 But the great i'mprovement, made with instruments
Monconys, "Journal des Voyages," Par., 1677, part ii, pp. 153, 161.
The figure we reproduce is from the edition of the "1Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae,"
Amsterdam, 1671, part, iii, 9, p. 770. The instrument is described, but not figured on
p. 837 of the Rome (1646) edition.

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 Section of the History of Medicine 253
of this type was the introduction of lenses of very short focal length.
As early as 1665, Robert Hooke used for the purpose small glass balls
formed by fusing threads of drawn glass.' Later, Hooke greatly
improved on these. Excellent spherical lenses were also made by
Hartsoeker, who was using them about 1668. Bu'tterfield 2 and Jan
van Mussenbroeck were a little later in the field.
It was Antony van Leeuwenhoeck, however, who perfected these
instruments. He brought an extraordinary skill and industry to bear
on the grinding and polishing of minute lenses of short focal length.
Already in 1673 Regnier de Graaf wrote to the Royal Society in London
that Leeuwenhoeck was making glasses far superior to those of the

B-C

F
MSurq. fi u tp
FIG. 5.
Bacteria as figured by Leeuwenhoeck (Phil. Trats., 1683). At E, cocci are
shown; at A, F, and G, rod-shaped organisms; at H, sarcinae; and at C a
flagellated organism.

great Italian lens maker, Eustachio Divini. Leeuwenhoeck's success

was largely due not only to his method of grinding, but also to the skill
with which he mounted his lenses, which were accurately fitted into a
minute hole in a metal plate. The object to be examined was firmly
held in a stand and adjusted by means of a screw movement to the
plate (see description of fig. 4). By this means, and by the use of
hollow metal reflectors, he succeeded in availing hinmself of transmitted
light in the case of transparent objects. Leeuwenhoeck- was able to
' Mentioned in Phil. Trans., March 4, 1678, and in "MIicrographia," Lond., 1665.
2 Phil. Trans., 1677, p. 226.

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254 Singer: Notes on the Early History of Microscopy
make immense advances with these instruments; rotifera'and infusoria
he could see with ease, and by 1683 he had even attained a sight of
the bacteria (fig. 5). Instruments similar to these of Leeuwenhoeck
seem to have been used by Malpighi, who, however, also employed
the compound apparatus.

A OGE'O'METRIGAIJIe O
-Traile named PANTOME T A
cfiuided in ree Bookes, Longi' tr
: PlaNimntra and Snenria,Cori conteiting Rules mani foijde
......-
. r -a..... r al titne, Spr/ imn Si desivt.e--
.: :.: :f;a::tr.un ncnclufltbutbbv inffruncnti :: ..................
VtlltJ t
ttBtIALOb Perfpediuegtaltrs,t!

FIG. 6.
Title-page of Digges's " Pantometria," 1571.

.Leeuwenhoeck's researches represent the high-water mark7fof 'work

done with the simple microscope. -Considerable advances were made on
his instruments in the following century, but their application was to a
different class of object, and they are outside our present scope. After
Leeuwenhoeck, most high-class microscopic work was accomplished
with the compound instrument.

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 Section of the History of Medicine 255

(II) THE COMPOUND MICROSCOPE.

The earliest history of the compound microscope is inextricably
involved with that of the telescope, and must in the first instance be
considered with it. Setting aside certain unverifiable claims, probably
the first writer who suggested the possibility of using a system of lenses
for the purpose of making a distant object apparently nearer was the

FIG. 7.
Giambattista della Porta.

English mathematician, Leonard Digges (died 1571). In a work pub-

lished by his son shortly after the father's death (fig. 6) we read that
" marueylouse are the conclusions that may be perfourmed by glasses
concaue and conuex of circulare and parabolicall fourmes, using for
multiplication of beames sometime the ayde of glasses transparent,
which by fraction should unite or dissipate the images or figures
presented by the reflection of other. By these kinds of glasses or
rather frames of them, placed in due angles, ye may not only set out the

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256 Singer: Notes on the Early History of Mlicroscopy
proportion of an whole region, you represent before your eye the lively
image of euery towne, village, etc., and that in as little or great space
or place as ye will prescribe, but also augment and dilate any parcell
thereof, so that whereas at the firste apparance an whole towne shall
present it selfe so small and compacte together that ye shall not discerne
any difference of streates, ye may by applycation of glasses in due pro-
portion cause any peculiare bouse or roume thereof dilate, and shew
it selfe in as ample fourme as the whole towne first appeared, so that
ye shall discerne any trifle or reade any letter lying there open,
especially if the sonne beames may come unto it, as playnly as if you
wer corporally present, although it be distante from you as farre .as eye
can discrye. But of these conclusions I minde 'not here more to
intreate, hauing at large in a volume by it selfe opened the miraculous
effectes of perspective glasses." 1 Digges's system appears to have been
combined in some manner with a camera Qbscura. Unfortunately, his
further description of it was never published.
The idea, however, was taken up by Porta (fig. 7), a writer who,
although not himself original, was gifted with great curiosity and
industry in the collection of the ideas of others. In the 1588 edition
of Porta's " Magia Naturalis," a hotchpotch of the wonders that were
then exciting the interest, of mankind, we read how "to make plain a
letter held far away by means of a lens of crystal." He was apparently
himself myopic, for he says that "concave lenses enable one to see
far off more clearly while convex ones make near objects more dis-
cernible," and he goes on to say that "with a concave lens you see
things afar smaller but plainer, with a convex lens you see them larger
but less distinct. If, however, you know how to combine the two sorts
properly you will see near and far both large and clear." 2
At some date shortly after the publication of Porta'l work a practical
application of the combination of two lenses into a microscope or tele-
scope was made by the Dutchman Zacharias, miscalled Jansen' (fig. 8).
"A Geometrical Practise named Pantometria . . . framed by Leonard Digges Gentle-
man, lately finished by Thomas Digges his sonne," Lond., 1571. Suggestions as to the
nature of Digges's apparatus are made by Major-General J. Waterhouse, " Proceedings of the
Optical Convention," 1905, p. 115.
2 G. Battista della Porta " Magia Naturalis," Naples, 1588, lib. xx. There are earlier
editions from 1558 onwards, which, however, do not include this passage. These earlier
editions, nevertheless, show a full knowledge of the properties of convex lenses as burning
glasses and magnifiers.
s The name Jansen is due to a misunderstanding. Zacbarias was indeed the son of John,
the spectacle maker, b6it Tansen was not, in this case, a surname. See Vincenzo Rocchi, loc.
cit., p. 9.

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 Section of the His8ory of Medicine '257
Zacharias was born at Middelburg in Holland about 1580, and about
1590, while still a lad and at work in the shop of his father who
was a spectacle maker, he appears to have discovered accidentally the
principle of the telescope, by placing two lenses together in a tube.'

ZACHARIA S I A N S EN
FIG. 8.
From Borel's " De Vero Telescopio Inventore."

The invention of the microscope followed at some unknown date. The

event is thus described by Willem Boreel (1591-1668), the Dutch
ambassador to France,2 in a letter to the Frenchman, Pierre Borel:
'The scanty details of the life of Zacharias are given in A. J. van der Aa's "Biographisch
Woodenboek der Nederlander Negende," Haarlem, 1860.
2
See Pierre Borel, "De vero telescopii inventore cum brevi omnium conspiciliorum
historia," The Hague, 1655, p. 34 ff.

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258 Singer: Notes on the Early History of Microscopy
"I am a native," says Boreel, " of Middelburg, the capital of Zeeland,
and close to the house where I was born . . . there lived in the year
1591 a certain spectacle maker, Hans by name. His wife, Maria, had
a son Zacharias whom I knew very well, because I constantly as a
neighbour and from a tender age went in and out playing with him.
This Hans or Johannes with his son Zacharias, as I have often heard,
were the first to invent microscopes, which they presented to Prince
Maurice, the governor and supreme commander of the united Dutch
forces, and were rewarded with some honorarium. Similarly they after-

FIG. 9.
Instrument discovered by Harting at Middelburg in 1866, and assigned to
the earlier part of the seventeenth century. It is perhaps the oldest compound
microscope now in existence and has been erroneously attributed to Zacharias.
(Reproduction by kind permission of Sir Frank Crisp.)

wards offered a microscope to the Austrian Archduke Albert, supreme

governor of Holland. When I was ambassador to England in the year
1619, the Dutchman Cornelius Drebbel of Alkomar, a man familiar
with many secrets of nature; who was serving there as mathematician
to King James, and was well known to me, showed me that very
instrument which the Archduke had presented as a gift to Drebbel,
namely, the microscope of Zacharias himself. Nor was it (as they are

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 Section of the History of Medicine 259
now seen) with a short tube, but nearly two and a half feet long, and
the tube was of gilded brass two fingers' breadth in diameter, and
supported on three dolphins formed also of brass. At its base was
an ebony disc, containing shreds or some minute objects which we
inspected from above, and their forms were so magnified as to seen
alnlost mira;culous." 1
This report is supported in almost every detail by evidence collected
by Pierre Borel from the town councillors of Middelburg. The micro-
scope is no longer in existence, but we are able to show pictures of

FIG. '.
Mlicroscopes from C. Schott's "Magia universalis," 1656.
I

instrumnents no less vast and clumiisy which were in use as late as 1656
by C. Schott2 (fig. 10).
There seemis no reason to doubt the very circunmstantial account
given by William Boreel, and the honour of having constructed the
first bilenticular instrument, albeit perhaps accidentally, rests with
Zacharias, who was closely followed by another Dutch lens iimaker,

P. Borel, " De vero inventore," p. 29 i.

2 C. Schott, " Magia universalis," 1656. Iii'the opinioni of Sir Frank Crisp, however, the
apparent size of these microscopes was due to an error of the engraver, who placed an entire
figure where the draughtsman had only placed an eye.
ju-13

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260 Singer: Notes on 'the Early History of Microscopy
Joannes Laprei or Lipperhey, of Wesel. The real work, however, of
introducing it to the notice of the scientific world lay with Galileo,
whose own account of the mnatter we now give from the " Sidereus
Nuncius," published at Venice in 1610: " About ten months ago," he
says, " a rumour reached me of an ocular instrument made by a certain
Dutchman by means of which an object could be made to appear
distinct and near to an eye that looked through it, although it was
really far away. . . . And so I considered the desirability of investi-
gating the method, and I reflected on the means by which I might
come to the invention of a similar instrument. A little later, making
use of the doctrine of refractions, I first prepared X leaden tube at
the ends of which were placed two lenses each of them flat on one
side, and as to the other side I fashioned one concave and the other
convex. Then moving the eye to the concave one, I saw the objects
fairly large and nearer, for they appeared three times nearer and nine
times larger than when they were observed by the naked eye. Soon
after I made another more exactly, representing objects more than
sixty times larger. At length, sparing no labour and no expense, I
got to the point that I could construct an excellent instrument so
that things seen through it appeared almost a thousand times greater
and more than thirty-fold nearer than if observed by the naked
eye."
Galileo had many detractors, and in answering one of them he
places his relationship to the unnamed Dutchman (who was doubtless
Zacharias the 'spectacle maker) in its true light. "Some," he says,
would tell me that it is of no little help in the discovery and resolution
of a problem to be first of all in some way aware of the true conclusion
and certain of not being in search of the impossible, and that therefore
the knowledge and the certainty that the microscope had indeed been
invented had been of such help to me that perchance without that
I should not have discovered it. To this I reply that the help rendered
me by the knowledge did indeed stimulate me to apply myself to the
notion, and it may be that without this I should never have thought
of it. Beyond this I do not believe that knowledge to have facilitated
the invention. But after all the solution of a problem, thought [out
and defined, is a work of some skill and we are not -certain that the
Dutchman, the first inventor of the telescope, 'was not a simple maker
of ordinary lenses who, casually arranging glasses of various sorts,
happened to look through the combination of a convex and a concave
one placed at various distances from the eye and in-this way observed

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 Section of the History of Medicine 261
the&effect that followed thereon. But I, moved by the knowledge given,
discovered'it by a process of reasoning."'
Galileo's " Sidereus Nuncius " contains also the first rough figure
of the path of the rays of light in a bilenticular system, the theory of

FIG. 11.
Francisco Fontana, the astronomer, from his "Novae Ocelestium Terrestriumque
Observationes," 1646.

which was more clearly expressed by Johannes Kepler in the year

1611.2 Although, however, so large and important a share in the
invention of the compound microscope and telescope rests with, Galileo
'Galileo Galilei, - Il Saggiatore nel quale conbilancia esquisita e guista si ponderano le
cose contenute nella Libra astronomica e filosofica di Lotaris Sarsi Sigensans," Rome, 1623,
p. 62.
2 J. Kepler, " Dioptrice, seu Demonstratio eorum quae visui et visibilibus propter conspicilla

non ita pridem inventa accidunt. Praemissa Epistolae Galilaei de iis quae post editionem
Nuncii siderii ope Perspicilli, nova et admiranda in coelo deprehensa sunt. Cologne 1511."
See especially problemata 86 and 87.1
Ju-13a

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 262 Singer: Notes on the Early History of Microscopy
and Kepler, yet the theory of the instrument, even apart from chromatic
aberration, could not have been on a satisfactory basis until the work of
Wilibrod Snell van Royen (1581-1626) on the reflection and refraction
of light, and his enunciation of the " sine law" about 1620.
Perhaps one of the earliest practical users of the compound micro-
scope was the astronomer Francisco Fontana, of Naples (fig. 11). In
1646 was first published his " New Observations of the Things of Heaven

FIG. 12.
Title-page of Fontana's work containing microscopical observations, 1646.

and of Earth" 1 (fig. 12). This work is chiefly valued for an admirable
illustrated account of the transit of Venus, as well as of Saturn's rings,
Jupiter's belts and the surface of the moon as investigated by means
of his telescope. The book is divided into eight tractates, of which
the first seven are astronomical. The eighth tractate is entitled
Novae Caelestium terrestriumque rerum observationes et fortasse hactenus non
vulgatae a Francisco Fontana specillis a se inventis et ad summam perfectionem productis
editae, " Naples, 1646.

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 Section of the History of Medicine 263
"Of the Microscope, by means of which the most minute and quasi-
invisible things are so enlarged that they may be clearly and distinctly
seen." He here claims to have invented the compound instrument
as early as 1618, and produces evidence that he was already using it
in 1625.
That the microscope was fairly well known in Italy about this time
may be gathered from a passage in a most curious and beautifully
illustrated work on the then newly discovered sun spots, produced

FIG. 13.
Descartes's microscope. From his " Dioptrique," 1637.

by Christopher Scheiner between 1626 and 1630 and entitled " Rosa
Ursina." 1 Scheiner describes how " if two convex smoked lenses are
fixed correctly in a tube, they make an admirable helioscope," and goes
on to say that "in the same fashion is constructed that wonderful

'Christopher Scheiner, " Rosa Ursina sive sol ex admirando facularum et macularum
suarum Phaenomeno varius. Bracciani Impresso coepta Anno 1626 finita vero 1630, Id.
Junii." Quotation from lib. ii, cap. xxx, p. 130, I. 33.

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264 Singer: Notes on the Early History of Microscopy
instrument the microscope, by means of which a fly is magnified into
an elephant, and a flea into a camel, and other things are rendered
apparent which escape the acuteness of the human eye by reason of
their extreme smallness."

P. ATHANASIVS KIRCHERVS FVL-DENSIS

e Societ: Iefu Anno statis LiII.
Icncris et observantza eyo scupsiret DD.C Bloemarrt Romw Ma A. t655
FIG. 14.

A curious and aberrant form of compound microscope was described

in 1637 by the philosopher Descartes, in his "Dioptrique." 1 This
"'KRen6 Descartes, La Dioptrique," ninth discourse. The "Dioptrique" was published as
an appendix to the " Discours de la M6thode," Leyden, 1637.

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 Section of the History of Medicine 265
instrument, which was really an adapted telescope, consisted of an
adjustable tube carrying two lenses (fig. 13). The ocular was plano-
concave, while the double convex objective was mounted in the centre of
a concave mirror adapted to concentrate parallel rays on to the object.
Rays were also concentrated on the object by means of a second plano-
convex lens placed in the direct line of light after the manner of a
modern substage condenser. The device is a clumsy one and never
seems to have attained popularity, though the custom of fixing the

FIG. 15.
Kircher's compound microscope. (From Zahn.)

objective in the centre of a concave reflecting surface was temporarily

revived in the eighteenth century.
A practical mioroscopist of early date with some knowledge of
optical principles was Athanasius Kircher (fig. 14), whose observations
we shall presently discuss. Kircher's first microscopical work appears
to have been done with a simple instrument given to him by Cardinal
Giovanni Carlo, son of Cosimo Medici IL' (fig. 2). But he must have
I Athanasius Kircher, " Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae," Rome, 1646, p. 835.

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266 Singer: Notes on the Early History of Microscopy
understood clearly enough the principles of the compound instrument
from the works of Fontana and Scheiner, both of whom he quotes.
For the " experiments " which he details in a later volume, the famous
" Scrutinium Pestis" of 1658, he apparently used the compound micro-
scope which was figured after his death by Buonanni and others (fig. 15).
This microscope consisted of a rigid tube, with a lens at each end.
The focus was obtained by screwing the tube up and down in a
vertical stand. Later an increased refinement was secured with a
second adjustment and the illumination was improved by a substage

FIG. 16.

Kircher's compound microscope adapted with coarse and fine adjustment and
substage condenser. (From Zahn.)

condenser, the instrument being used in a horizontal position1 (fig. 16).

Malpighi saw the circulation of the blood on the surface of the frog's
lung by means of a compound mnicroscope and Hobke had constructed
a serviceable and elegant compound apparatus with an objective of very
short focal length before the publication of his " Micrographia " in the
year 1665 (fig. 17). He figures the instrument as provided with a
condensing apparatus for concentrating either the sun's rays or those
' Philippo Buonanni, " Museum Kircherianum," Rome, 1709.

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 Section ol the History of Medicine 267
of an attached lamp. Microscopes similar to those of Kircher and of
Hooke may still be seen in a state of good preservation in the Galileo
Museum at Florence. Kircher's own instruments, however, have com-
pletely disappeared from the Museo Kircheriano at Rome.
Nehemiah Grew, in the Catalogue of the Museum of the Royal
Society in 1681, describes among the objects there deposited a simple
microscope as well as "A large Microscope with three Glasses, and

FIG. 17.
Hooke's microscope. (From " Micrographia," 1665.)

several Screws to fit it for all manner of positions. It magnifies the

Area of the object to above a hundred times the extent thereof to the
bare Eye." He distinguishes between the uses of the two types of
microscope and tells us that " the advantage of one with more Glasses,
is that it takes in a bigger object, or a greater part of it. Of one single
Glass, that it shews the Object clearer. So that to have a distinct
representation of it, 'tis convenient to mnake use of both." He goes
on to tell us that " of the latter kind, I have seen several made by

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 268 Singer: Notes on the Early History of Microscopy
Mr. John Malling in this City (London), not only with melted, but with
Ground-Glasses so very small, that one of these Ground-Glasses being
weighed in the Assay-Scales in the Tower, was found not above the
fourscorth part of a Grain. The Diametre or Chord th part of an
inch. Another so small, that those scales were not nice enough to
weigh it. The Chord hereof to that of the former is as two to three.
These are the clearest and best that ever I saw."
The early microscopist who seems to have best grasped the principles
and possibilities of the compound microscope and who realized the effect
of a number of combined lenses was Eustachio Divini, who in 1663
was using a combination of six lenses' (fig. 18), while Johannes Zahn,
in 1685,2 illustrates well the path of the light rays in an instrument
composed of four lenses. After that date the compound instrument
rose steadily in favour, and after Newton had shown the theoretical
possibility of an achromatic instrument, manay improvements were slowly
introduced. The simple lens thus ceased to be a competitor of the
compound microscope, though it retained, as it always will, the value
assigned to it by Grew, in its own line of investigation.

(III) SOME PIONEERS OF MICROSCOPICAL OBSERVATION.

Sir Theodore de Mayerne, in his preface to Mouffet's " Insectorum
Theatrum "8 (written about 1590 and published 1634), tells us how he
was accustomed to observe small insects with a magnifying glass. "If
you will take," says Mayerne, " lenticular optick glasses of Crystal (for
though you have Lynx his eyes, they are necessary in searching for
Atoms) . . . you will admire to see . . . the Fleas that are
curasheers, and their . . . hollow trunk to torture men, which is a
bitter plague to maids, . . . you shall see the eyes of the Lice sticking
forth, and their horns, their bodies crannied all over, their whole sub-
Eustachio Divini, " Lettera all Ill1o Sig. Conte Carl, Antonio Manzini. Si raggaglia
di un nuovo lavoro e componimento di Lenti, che servono 'a Occhialoni b semplici, 6
composti," Rome, 1663.
2
Joannes Zahn, "Oculus artificiales, Teledioptricus, sive Telescopium," Herbipoli, 1685,
p. 174.
3Thomas Mouffet, "Insectorum sive Minimorum Animalium Theatrum." The original
MS., written about 1590, is now in the British Museum (Sloane MS., 4014, with engraved
portrait). It fell into the hands of Mayerne and was published by him in 1634. A charmingly
translated English version of the work and of Mayerne's preface, from which the above
quotation is made, appeared from the hand of J(ohn) R(owland) in 1658 as " The Theatre of
Insects or lesser living creatures."

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 Section of the History of Medicine 269
stance diaphanous, and, through that, the motion of their heart and
blood as if it floted in Euripus . . . Also little Handworms, which are
indivisible, they are so small, being with a needle prickt forth from
their trenches near the pool of water which they have made in the skin,
and being laid upon one's nail, will discover by the sunlight their red
heads and feet they creep withal." Mouffet himself refers to these acari

FIG. 18.
Microscope believed to be that of Eustachio Divini (1667). The body was
constructed of cardboard and was provided with three draw tubes. This instru.
ment was described as being in the Museo Copernicano at Rome by the late
Mr. Mayall,' in 1886. (Reproduction by kind permission of Sir Frank Crisp.)

as "the smallest of living creatures." He compares them to the mites

of cheese, and correctly distinguishes them from the Pediculi. It is still
doubtful how long before Mayerne the itch mite was investigated by
means of magnifying glasses.

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270 Singer: Notes on the Early History of Microscopy
The earliest illustrated publication for which there is any evidence
that a magnifying glass was used is by Hoefnagel and appeared at
Frankfort in 1592.1 The work consists merely of a series of copper
plates of objects of natural history, but they are engraved with extra-
ordinary beauty and accuracy, and some of them are enlarged in greater
detail than would appear possible with the unaided eye. These remark-
able figures are stated to have been drawn by a youth, aged 17. We
reproduce here his magnified figure of the domestic fly (fig. 19).
In the first third of the seventeenth century, and before the period
of true microscopic discovery, considerable attention was paid to the
minute structure of natural objects, curiosity being aroused by attempts
to discover with the magnifying glass the "atoms" comprising the
minute structure of matter. One of the very earliest scientific workers

FIG. 19.
Enlarged figure of fly, as drawn by Hoefnagel, 1592.

with the microscope, inspired by such influences, was the noble and
unfortunate Federigo Cesi, Duke of Aquasparta (1590-1629), the
companion of Galileo and the president and founder of the Academia
dei Lincei. Cesi was already using the instrument with effect before
1628. His microscopic skill is attested by his contemporary and asso-
ciate, Johannes Faber (1578-1640), whose remarks on the subject drew
the attention of our own Sir Thomas Browne (1604-82). In an
interesting passage published in 1646,2 showing larger powers of

'The title page is worded as follows: " Archetypa studiaque patris Georgii Hoefnagelii.
Jacobus F. genio duce ab ipso scalpta, omnibus philomusis amice D: ac perbenigne com-
municat. Ann: sal: XCII. Aetat: XVII. Frankfort a/M."
2 Sir Thomas Browne, " Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or Enquiries into very many received
Tenents and commonly presumed Truths," Lond., 1646, Book II, chap. vii, 3.

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 Section of the History of Medicine 271
scientific judgment than is perhaps usually placed to the credit of the
great stylist, Browne writes as follows concerning the sporangia of
ferns: " Whether those little dusty particles, upon the lower side of the
leaves be seeds and seminal parts . . . we have not yet been able to
determine by any germination . . . from them when they have been
sown on purpose . . . But by the help of Magnifying Glasses, we find
these dusty Atoms to be round at first and fully representing seeds, out
of which at last proceed little mites, almost invisible; so that such as
are old stand open, as being emptied of some bodies formerly included,
which though discernible in Hartstongue, is more notoriously discover-
able in some differences of Brake or Fern. But exquisite Microscopes
and Magnifying Glasses have at last cleared this doubt, whereby long ago
the noble Fredericus Caesius beheld the dust of Polypodi as bigg as
Pepper corns; and as Johannes Faber testifieth, made draughts on paper
of such kind of seeds, as big as his Glasses represented them, and set
them down as such plants under the Classis of Herbae Tergifoetae, as
may be observed in his notable Botanical Fables." 1 Fragments of
Cesi's herbarium still exist in Rome, but I have searched these without
finding the figures to which Faber and Browne refer.
One of the best and most accurate early pieces of microscopic
research was published in 1644 at Palermo by the Sicilian Hodierna.2
This acute observer applied himself to the investigation of the eyes of
insects, and his description of the eye of the fly is surprisingly fresh and
good (fig. 20). " AB represents the entire head of the animal cut off from
the rest of the body. It may here be seen that the head is all eyes, promi-
nent and without lids, lashes or brows. It is plumed with hairs like
that of an ostrich and has two little pear-shaped bodies hanging from
the middle of the forehead. The proboscis which arises from the snout
can be extended freely and stretched forth to suck up humours and can
afterwards be directed back through the mouth to be taken into the gullet.
This instrument nature has given the creature according to its need, for
'This passage is a paraphrase of one of Johannes Faber (1587-1640), physician to
Urban VIII. Faber produced at Rome, in 1628, a work entitled "Animalia Mexicana.'
Browne's quotation is taken from page 757 of Fabers work, which was, in fact, actually
printed before that of Cesi. Cesi's " Phytosophicarum Tabularum ex Frontispiciis
Naturis Theatri," was completed in 1628, but was not published until 1630, after the
author's death. It has been partially reprinted by Pirotta (Rome, 1904). I have been
unable to trace the passage in Pirotta's reprint or in the editions of 1649 or 1651. The
original edition of 1630 I have not seen.
2 Giambattista Hodierna, " L'occhi6 della mosca discorso fisico intorno all'anatomia

dell'occhio in tutti gl'animali anulosi, detti insetti," Palermo, 1644.

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272 Singer: Notes on the Early History of Microscopy
it is without a neck and cannot stretch forth its head to obtain its food,
as is also the case with the elephant. C represents the whole eye cut off
fr om the head AB on which can be seen more than thirty thousand little
figures (quadretti) imprinted on the surface of the red cornea. D represents
half an eye cut from the surface to the centre, so that the disposition of
the crystalline structures can be seen. The crystalline structures, with
their bases on the surface of the cornea, pass in a pyramidal fashion
to end on the little tunic of the Uvea. This occupies the centre of the
eye and in its interior the cerebral substance is enclosed. E is a white
mulberry fruit which resembles the fly's eye in its similar disposition of
facets as does also the strawberry represented at F."
One of the very first to collect observations made by the aid of the
compound microscope was Francisco Fontana, whom we have already

FIG. 20.
The fly's eye, after Hodierna, 1644.

considered among the pioneer constructors of the instrument. His

tractate on the microscope (1646) contains a terminal chapter of four
pages in which is briefly set forth a small series of observations on the
mites in cheese, on the structure of the flea, the ant and the fly, and on
other subjects, including the human body. We give here an example
of his observations: " On the creatures that arise in powdery cheese."
" The powder examined by means of this instrument does not present
the aspeot of dust, but teems with aniimalcula . . . It can be seen
that these creatures have claws and talons and are furnished with eyes.
The whole surface of their body is beautifully and distinctly coloured in
such sort as I have never before seen, and which indeed, cannot be seen
without wonder. They may be observed to crawl, eat and move and
are equal in apparent size to a man's nail. Moreover, their backs are

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 Section of the History of Medicine 273
all spiny and pricked out with various star-like markings and surrounded
by a rampart of hairs, all of such a marvellous kind that you would say
they are a work of art rather than of nature."
Probably, the first practical physician who used a microscope in the
course of his profession was Pierre Borel (1620-71). This versatile
and gifted man, the son of a mathematician, -struggled through youthful
poverty and adversity to a very prominent position in the intellectual
life of France.' Borel himself acquired considerable grasp of mathe-
matical principles and was an ardent follower of Descartes. He was
certainly in possession of a microscope and understood its uses before
1649.2 His "Historiarum et Observationum Medico-Physicarum" of
1653 is, we believe, the first medical work involving the use of the
microscope,3 and the following quotation from it suggests that he had
already, at that early date, obtained a view of the blood corpuscles.
" On Whale-shaped Insects in Human Blood (Century III, Obser-
vation 4).-Animals of the shape of whales or dolphins swim in the
human blood as in a red ocean. . . . These creatures, it may be supposed
(since they themselves lack feet) were formed for the bodily use of the
more perfect animals within which they are themselves contained, and
that they should consume the depraved elements of the blood.4 If you
would like to see these, take a sheep or ox liver, cut it into small
portions and place it in water, teasing and separating it with your
hands, and you will see many such animals escaping from them, nor
will they be destitute of movement if the liver is fresh. They lurk in
the large veins, and I think that they are those worms which are found
in the stomach, being transformed when they change their position."
A short account of the life of Borel is prefixed to "Les Antiquit6s de Castres,"
Paris, 1868, a reprint by C. Pradel of a work by Borel, published in 1649 (see following
note).
2 In a small volume entitled " Les Antiquites, Raretes, Plantes, Min4raux et autres choses

considerables de la Ville, and Comte de Castres d'Albigeois," Castres' 1649, is an appendix

consisting of a catalogue of Borel's museum. Among the objects mentioned are mirrors
concave and convex, burning glasses, and also "De lunettes A la puce, ou microscoles qui
grossissent fort les objets. De lunettes de multiplication, et pour approcher les objets,"
p. 147. Hoefer's "Nouvelle Biographie universelle" refers to an earlier edition of this
catalogue, dated 1645 (when Borel was only 25), which we have not seen.
3 Pierre Borel, "Historiarum et Observationum Medico-physicarum Centuria, prima

[et secunda] ," Castres, 1653. Our authority for the existence of this edition, which we have
not seen, is Hoefer's "Nouvelle Biographie Universelle." We have ourselves used and quoted
the Paris edition of 1656. There were several subsequent editions.
4The language of Borel is not very clear, and it is possible that he had been examining
small clots rather than blood corpuscles. We incline, however, to the latter view.

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274 Singer: Notes on the Early History of Microscopy
Again in a later observation 1 he gives us a glimpse of tissue structure.
" The heart, kidneys, testicles, liver, lungs, and other parenchymatous
organs," he says, *" you will find to be full of little structures (organula)
and they are like sieves by means of which Nature arranges the various
substances according to the shape of the holes. Passage is thus given
only to atoms of a certain shape." And lastly he prophesies the medical
application of his instrument. " These microscopes," he writes, "may
be used in new matters in the observation of the sick, e.g. to observe
change of colour or the generation of insects." 2
In 1655 Borel issued a work on the telescope with which is bound
up a series of one hundred microscopic observations, mainly on minute
insects, with a few crude illustrations.3 The separate issue of these
microscopic observations a few months later constitutes the first book
devoted to microscopy.

FIG. 21.
Acarus scabiei, as pictured by August Hauptmann, 1657.

We should briefly mention here August Hauptmann, a credulous

writer, whose ingenuity was accustomed to outrun his judgment. To
him belongs, however, the credit of being the first to figure a separate
microscopic or rather submicroscopic organism - viz., the Acarus
scabiei. We give from a work of 1657 his representation of the
animal, which the reader would probably not recognize without its
context (fig. 21).
In many ways the most striking of these early microscopic workers
is Athanasius Kircher. Impeded rather than helped by a vast learn-

"Observationum Microscopicarum Centuria," The Hague, 1656, Obs. 76.

2" Observationum Microscopicarum Centuria," Obs. 83.
s Pierre Borel, " De vero Telescopii Inventore cum brevi omnium conspicilliorum historia
. . .Accessit etiam Centuria Observationum Microscopicarum," The Hague, 1655. The
separate title-page of the microscopic observations bears the date 1656.
4 August Hauptmann, " Warmer Bad und Wasser Schaltz," Frankfort, 1657.

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 Section of the History of Medicine 275
ing, and befogged by a method of writing from which the reader needs
to excavate the meaning, he is yet an author who exercised wide
influence on his contemporaries. Kircher was born in 1601 near Fulda,
and was educated at the school of the Jesuit fathers in that town. He
was received into the Order of Jesus at the Archi-episcopal city of
Mainz, and later became Professor at the neighbouring UJniversity of
Wiirzburg, which had been refounded some forty years previously. In
the early seventeenth century Wiirzburg was the stronghold of the
Jesuits in Germany, and its University was largely frequented by
Catholic students. In 1631, during the Thirty Years' War, so disastrous
to German academic life, Gustavus Adolphus, championing the Pro-
testant cause, occupied Wiirzburg. The University became disorganized
and Kircher fled to Avignon, whence four years later he proceeded to
Rome under the protection of Cardinal Barberini, whose brcther,
Urban VIII, then occupied the Papal throne. This pontiff, who will go
down to posterity for the share he took in the condemnation of Galileo,
had in 1627 established in Rome the celebrated " College of the Propa-
ganda" for the education of missionaries, and to this institution Kircher
became attached for eight years as professor of mathematics. Resigning.
in 1643, he spent the remainder of his long life in the study of archaeo-
logical and scientific subiects under the protection of members of the
wealthy families of the Barberini and the Medici. Through his
relationship with the College of the Propaganda as well as with the
priests of his own Order, Kircher was placed in an especially favourable
position to obtain from all parts of the world material and information
on the subjects of his study.' The valuable collection that he was thus
able to gather he bequeathed to the College on his death in 1680.1 This
collection has been several times described and figured.
The successive appearance of Kircher's works was awaited with
eager interest by the learned and curious throughout the world. Few
men can have spent so busy a life as the old Jesuit. The actual
physical labour of writing the endless series of works to which his name
is attached might well appal a strenuous modern journalist; treatises
on magnetism, a design for a calculating machine, works on optics,
a history or account of the plague, monographs on philology and
acoustics, theological tracts, an attempt at a universal script, a vast
1 It formed the nucleus of the Museo Kircheriano, now absorbed into the Museo
Nazionale at Rome. His microscopes have apparently been lost, although some of his
astronomical instruments are still preserved at the Collegio Romano.

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 276 Singer: Notes on the Early History of Microscopy
tome on volcanoes, mathematical works, an essay on the philosopher's
stone, an attempt at a Coptic grammar, A work on Egyptian antiquities
and hieroglyphics, and an account of China flowed from his pen in rapid
succession. In most of his works Kircher is quite uncritical and lacking
in judgme4t, though he displays some originality, combined with a

FIG. 22.
Plant cells. (From Hooke's " Micrographia," 1665.) This is probably the
earliest work in which cells are figured.

remarkable power of absorbing both information and misinformation.

In his work on the Plague,' however, he shows genuine insight, and
gains a clear though distorted view of organisms of minute size acting
"Scrutinium Physico-Medicum contagiosae Luis, quae Pestis dictitur quo'origo, causae,
signa, prognostica Pestis, nec non involentes malignantis Naturae effectus, qui statis tem-
poribus, caelestium influxuum, virtute et efficacea, tum in elementis; tum in epidemiis
hominum animantiumque morbis elucescunt, una cum appropriatis remediorum Antidotis
nova doctrina in lucem eruuntur," dedicated to Pope Alexander VII, Rome, 1658.

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 Section of the History of Medicine 277
as the vehicles of contagion. *Being himself a practical microscopist, he
was aware of the difficulties and. possibilities of the method. Thus,
although his work is characterized by total disregard of " control "
observations, and is undeniably marred by his credulity, he yet shows
a first-hand acquaintance -with minute life, which proves that he
had industriously explored the microscopic world within the scope of
his own rough instruments. How he managed with his endless

N,cvwnm MicrofcopiumwnTi IosephL' Camnpanz..1 qwsquc #fus

FiG. 23.
The earliest figure illustrating the use of the microscope in medicine, from
the "IActa Eruditorum," of -1686. To the right is seen a figure examining an
ulcer with the microscope while the light of a candle is focused by means of
a lens in the hand of the female figure. To the left of this- group another
method of using the instrument is illustrated, and to the extreme left is an
enlarged dbtail of the micro'scope fixed in a stand.

pre-occupations to find time for such studies is lasting mystery, but a

there seems to me to be no reasonable doubt that he did habitually
examine hforins beyond the range of unaided vision, including infusoria.
The organisms which he des'cribes as occurring in the blood of the

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278 Singer: Notes on the Early History of Microscopy
plague-stricken were, however, not bacteria, but either pus corpuscles
or rouleaux of blood cells.
It is imipossible here to discuss in detail the complicated question of
Kircher's conception of the nature of infection, or the sources from
which this concepltion was derived.' It will suffice to say, briefly, that
he regards the essence of the disease as a " putridity of the humours,"
and putridity he regards as a condition produced from " semina "
thrown off according to the then prevalent doctrine of " effluvia" from
other putrid bodies. "Air, water and earth," he tells us, ' teem with
innumerable insects capable of ocular demonstration. Everyone knows
that decomposing bodies breed worms, but only since the wonderful
discovery of the microscope has it been known that every putrid body
swarms with innumerable vermicules, a statement which I should not
have believed had I not tested its truth by experiments during many
years." There follows an account of a series of experiments, from
which we have selected the following:
"Experiment I: Take a piece of meat which you leave exposed by
night until the following dawn to the lunar -moisture. Then examine it
carefully with the smicroscope and you will find the contracted putridity
to have been altered by the moon into innumerable wormlets of diverse
size, which, however, would escape the sharpness of vision without a
good smicroscope. . . . The same is true of cheese, milk, vinegar and
similar bodies of a putrefiable nature. The smicroscope, however,
must be no ordinary one but constructed with no less skill than
diligence, as is mine which represents objects a thousand times
greater than their true size.
"Experiment II: If you cut up a snake into small parts and
macerate it with rain water, and then expose it for several days to the sun
and again bury it under the earth for a whole day and night, and lastly
examine the parts, separated and softened by putridity, by means of a
smicroscope, you will find the whole mass swarm with innumerable
little multiplying serpents so that even the sharpest eyes cannot count
them.
" Experiment III: Many authors claim that unwashed sage is
injurious . . . but I have discovered the cause of this. For when, by
means of the snlcroscope, I minutely examined the nature of this plant,
I found the back of the leaves entirely covered by raised work, as with
The subject is discussed in an essay by the present writer on " The Doctrine of Con-
tagium Vivum," in the Proceedings of the Seventeenth International Medical Congress, 1913
(Historical Section).

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 Section of the History of Medicine 279
the figure of a spider's web, and within the web appeared infinitesimal
animalcules, which moving constantly came out of little buds or
eggs.
" Experiment IV: If you examine a particle of rotten wood under
the smicroscope, you will see an immense progeny of tiny worms, some
with horns, some with wings, others with many feet. They have little
black dots of eyes. . . What must their little livers and stomachs, their
tendons and nerves be like ?"
With Athanasius Kircher we leave the actual pioneer period of
microscopy and enter on what may be called the classical epoch of our
subject. This field has been well covered by historical writers, and
the literature is more accessible. Here, therefore, we may part with
the reader in the goodly company of Robert Hooke, Nehemiah Grew,
Anthony Leeuwenhoeck, Jan Swammerdam and Marcello Malpighi.

Mr. D'ARCY POWER referred to the interest of Dr. Singer's paper, and said
that in 1912 he showed a portrait of Dr. William Harvey, dated 1639. The
background of the picture contained a microscope which was identical in form
with Descartes's microscope (fig. 13). It seemed clear, therefore, that the
microscope described by Descartes in 1637 was used by Harvey two years
afterwards.

ju-13b

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