938 LEEUWENHOEK AND HIS ‘‘ LITTLE ANIMALS ”’ 
I have ere this sent you my observations concerning 
spittle, which I see have been made public in print in the 
Lectures and Collections published by Mr. Robert Hooke, 
Secretary of the Roy. Soc., in the year 1678.’ Since 
that time I have made divers further observations on 
my spittle, with the idea that if there be any animalcules 
lying about in the body, they would get into the mouth, 
sooner or later, through the spit-ducts; but in what 
observations I made to this end, I could make out no 
animalcules there, nor could I say aught else but what 
I have hitherto writ. 
"Tis my wont of a morning to rub my teeth with salt, 
and then swill my mouth out with water: and often, 
after eating, to clean my back teeth with a toothpick, as 
well as rubbing them hard with a cloth: wherefore my 
teeth, back and front, remain as clean and white as falleth 
to the lot of few men* of my years,’ and my gums (no 
partial English translation in Select Works, Vol. I, p. 118. Léffler (1887, 
p. 5) has translated a fragment into German, but he misdates the letter 
September 14. It was read at a meeting of the Society held on 24 October 
1683 [O.S.]: ef. Birch, Vol. IV, p. 219. Various reproductions of the 
illustrative figures are noted below (p. 244 et seq.). They have already 
given rise to much confusion and misstatement.—-Though there are already 
at least one Dutch, two Latin, and three English versions of this letter in 
print, I rely upon the original MS. (in L.’s own hand), from which my 
translation has been made. 
"A reference to Letter 23, 14 January 1678. To R. Hooke. 
MS.Roy.Soc. English version (incomplete) published in Hooke’s Lect. & 
Collect. (1678), part II, Letter 2, p. 84. (Reprinted in Hooke’s Lect. Cutl. 
(1679) pt. V.)—This letter contains an account of certain ‘‘ Globules in the 
Flegm’’: but L. had examined saliva still earlier, for in Letter 4 (1 June 
1674, to Oldenburg) he notes that ‘‘In clean spit, examined by me in the 
morning, I find a few very little particles floating in the liquid; whereof 
I saw some sink to the bottom; as also divers irregular particles, some of 
which seemed to consist of globules stuck together. And in the spittle that 
I examined in the afternoon, I found the globules and irregular particles in 
greater plenty”. (MS.Roy.Soc. Partial English translation in Phil. Trans. 
(1674), Vol. IX, No. 106, p. 121.) 
* als er weijnig menschen van mijn Jaren sign MS. als weynig 
menschen . . . gebeurt printed version. 
* When he wrote this, L. was approaching his 51st birthday. He tells 
