sé > SEMINAL VERMICULI. Tt. 
cannot deny, at the fame time, that very accurate 
obfervations demonftrate, that fome worms, if 
not of the human body, at leaft of the bodies of 
particular animals, are produced by infects of the 
great world. Such are thofe inhabiting the 
rectum of the horfe, the frontal finus of fheep, 
goats, and the larynx of flags, as the eminent 
and moft expert naturalifts, Vallifneri and Reau- 
mur, have difcovered. 
With refpec to feminal vermiculi, my obferva- 
tions will not allow me to afcribe them to an ‘ex- 
ternal origin; was it fo, I muft certainly have 
once perceived it. More than fourteen years 
have elapfed fince I have been occupied with in- 
fufions, with ftudying the waters of marfhes, 
ponds, and ditches, for thefe are generally full 
of microfcopic animalcula; and, with abfolute 
fincerity, I can afirm, that among the innumer- 
able minute animals contemplated by me, never 
was one feen refembling the feminal vermiculi of 
man and quadrupeds(1). Ido not deny that, 
admitting 
(1) This had already been remarked by Leeuwenhoeck, 
as appears from his 301 letter. ‘ Licet varias, et indole 
‘ diyerfifimas aquas contemplatus fim, nec iftiufmodi ani- 
‘ malcula, (id eft fpermatica), nec quidquam quod ani- 
‘ malcula ifta fimilitudine aliqua, vel figura referret, in ullis 
© unquam aquis obferyaverim.’ Other obfervers agree with 
Leeuwenhoeck and myfelf as much as could be defired, 
Among 146 genera which Muller has claffed, he has feea 
only 
