CAPILLARIES AND CORPUSCLES 71 



Malpighi had as yet written nothing, but his penetra- 

 tion and sagacity were early recognised by his colleagues. 

 His singular beauty and simplicity of character were 

 evident to all. His special skill in minute anatomy also 

 soon drew attention. From an early date these qualities 

 of his became known in England, and nearly all his works 

 were published in London by and at the expense of our 

 own Royal Society. The only one of Malpighi's pub- 

 lications with which we are here concerned, however, is 

 his first. It was printed not in London but in Bologna, 

 in 1 66 1, under the title Anatomical Observations on the 

 Lungs. 



In this work Malpighi supplied the missing element 

 in the investigations of Harvey. He was the first man 

 who saw the actual passage of blood from arteries to 

 veins. He saw the capillaries of the lesser or pulmonary 

 circulation. The object which first yielded up the secret 

 was the lung of the frog. This organ in the frog happens 

 to be almost transparent. It is also very simple in 

 structure, and is furnished on its surface with particu- 

 larly conspicuous capillary vessels. Malpighi could 

 hardly have selected a more suitable object for the 

 purposes of this research. We may let him tell his 

 own story. 



He tells us that while to the naked eye " the frog's 

 lung is nought but a membranous bladder ... to 

 observation with the microscope it yields something 

 much more remarkable." In the tiny vessels on the 

 surface of the lung he could see that " the blood is forced 

 and scattered by the pulse through the arteries into a 

 network. ... As the blood stream, thus repeatedly 

 divided up, is carried round in a sinuous manner, its 

 colour fades. It is thus distributed until it approaches 

 the walls . . . receiving branches of the veins. . . . 

 While the heart is still beating, two movements in 



