The Dawn of Microscopiral Discover//. By 0. Singer. 



333 



as the father of microscopy, it is for him that the title should 

 surely be reserved. 



One of the best and most accurate early pieces of microscopic 

 research was published in 1C>44 at Palermo by the Sicilian Hodierna 

 (1597-3 660) This brilliant and very acute observer applied 

 himself to the investigation of the eyes of insects, of which he 

 claims to have minutely examined no less than thirty-four species. 

 His description of the eye of the fly is surprisingly fresh and good 

 (fig. 45). " A hi represents the entire head of the animal cutoff 

 from the rest of the body. It may here be seen that the head is 

 all eyes, prominent, 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 



Fig. 45.— The Fly"s Eye, from Hodierna, 1644. 



badk through the mouth to be taken into the gullet, This instru- 

 ment Nature has given the creature according to its need, for 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 from the head A B, on which can be seen more than thirty 

 thousand little figures (quadretti) imprinted on the surface of the 

 red cornea. J) 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 the Neapolitan Francisco Fontana 



* (iianbattista Hodierna, " " L'occhio della mosca discord fisico intoruo 

 all'anatomia dell'occhio in tutti "l'anirnali annnlosi, detti insetti," Palermo. 1644 



Aug. 18th, If) Id 



■1 A 



