The Dawn of Microscopical Discovert/. />'// G. Singer. 335 



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 ' 

 In the year 1652 a few random microscopic observations were 

 recorded by the Italian physician Panarola,t but probably the 

 first practical physician who used a Microscope in the course of 

 his profession was the Frenchman Pierre Borel (1620-71). This 

 versatile and gifted man had considerable grasp of mathematical 



Fig. 47. — Title-page of Fontana's work of 1646 containing the 



tractate on the Microscope. 



principles, and was certainly in possession of a Microscope and 

 understood its uses before 1649.$ His " Historiarum et Observa- 



* Francisco Fontana, "Novae Coelestium Terrestriumque Observationes," 

 Naples, 1646, Cap. in., Obs. 1, p. 148. 



t Domenico Panarola, " Iatrologismorum seu rnedicinalium Observationum 

 Pentecostse quinque," Rome, 1652. See especially Observations 34, 35, and 36. 



% In a srnall volume entitled " Les Antiquites, Raretes, Plantes Mineraux et 

 antres choses considerables de la Ville, and Comte de Casttea d'Albigeois.'L'astres, 

 1649, is an appendix consisting of a catalogue of Borel's museum. Among the 

 objects mentioned are mirrors concave and convex, burning glasse>, ami also 

 " De lunettes a la puce, ou microscopes qui grossissent fort les objets. De lunel 

 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. 



