PROGRESS OF MINUTE ANATOMY 9^ 



It is said that he was skilled in at least eight languages; and 

 at one time he was the cipher secretary and confidential 

 translator for the United Provinces of Holland. He was 

 educated as a lawyer, but, from interest in the subject, de- 

 voted most of his time to engraving objects of natural histor}^ 

 Among his earliest published drawings were the figures for 

 Lesser's Theology of Insects (1742) and for Trembley's 

 famous treatise on Hydra (1744). 



His Great Monograph. — Finally lA^onet decided to branch 

 out for him.self, and produce a monograph on insect anatomy. 

 After some prelimiinary work on the sheep-tick, he settled 

 upon the caterpillar of the goat moth, which lives upon the 

 willow-tree. His work, first published in 175c, bore the title 

 Traite Anatomique de la Chenille qui range le hois de Saule. 

 In exploring the anatomy of the form chosen, he displayed 

 not only patience, but great skill as a dissector, while his 

 superiority as a draughtsman was continually shown in his 

 sketches. He engraved his own figuies on copper. The draw- 

 ings are very remarkable for the amount of detail that they 

 show. He dissected this form with the same thoroughness 

 with which medical men have dissected the human body. 

 The superficial muscles were carefully drawn and were then 

 cut away in order to expose the next underlying layer which, 

 in turn, was sketched and then removed. The amount of 

 detail involved in this work may be in part realized from the 

 circumstance that he distinguished 4,041 separate muscles. 

 His sketches show these muscles accurately drawn, and the 

 principal ones are lettered. When he came to expose the 

 nerves, he followed the minute branches to individual small 

 muscles and sketched them, not in a diagrammatic way, but 

 as accurate drawings from the natural object. The breath- 

 ing-tubes were followed in the same manner, and the other 

 organs of the body were all dissected and drawn with remark- 

 able thoroughness. Lyonet was not trained in anatomy 



