The Dawn of Microscopical Discovery. By C. Singer. 323 



shall see the eyes of the Lice sticking forth, and their horns, their 

 bodies crannied all over, their whole substance diaphanous, and 

 through that, the motion of their heart and blond as if it 'rioted in" 

 Euripus . . . Also little Hand worms which are indivisible they are sa 

 sni all,' being with a needle piekt forth of' their trenches neer tin 

 pooh of water which, they have made in the skin, and being laid upon 

 ones nail, will' discover by the Sunlight their nil heads and fret they 

 creep withal." * 



The little Acarus was well known to the philosopher. IWnr 

 Descartes (1596-1650), who interested himself greatly in optical 

 methods, and also to his pupil Rohault (1620-1675). f It is 



Pig. 36. — Thomas Mouffet, from a Manuscript in the 

 British Museum (Sloane, 4014). 



frequently mentioned by early writers as illustrating the extreme 

 complexity of minute nature, and as representing the smallest 

 possible living form, indivisible in its minuteness and a veritable 

 " living atom," a term often applied to these minute organisms by 

 sixteenth and seventeenth century writers.^ 



The conception is illustrated in a curious passage by the verbose 



* MouSet, loc. cit. The Epistle Dedicatory. 



t Jacques Rohault. " Traite de Physique," Paris, 1671. 



% It is interesting in this connexion to observe that the word mite is probably 

 derived from a Gothic root mei, to cut or divide ; thus the words mite and atom, 

 which in the seventeenth century were often interchangeable, have really a similar 

 connotation.' Both words imply a fragment of matter so far broken up that its 

 ■further division is impossible. 



