BACTERIA IN THE HUMAN MOUTH 241 
animalcules, together with the long particles, as herein- 
before related. 
I have also examined the spittle of a child about eight 
years old, and likewise could discover no living animalcules 
therein ; and afterwards the same spittle, mixed with the 
stuff that I got out from atween the child’s teeth: where- 
upon I perceived as great a many animalcules and other 
particles as heretofore made mention of. 
I didn’t clean my teeth (on purpose) for three days 
running, and then took the stuff that had lodged in very 
small quantity on the gums above my front teeth; and I 
mixt it both with spit and with fair rain-water;* and 
I found a few living animalcules in it too. 
While I was talking to an old man (who leads a sober 
life, and never drinks brandy or tobacco,’ and very seldom 
any wine), my eye fell upon his teeth, which were 
all coated over; so I asked him when he had last cleaned 
his mouth? And IJ got for answer that he’d never washed 
his mouth in all his life.” So I took some spittle out of 
his mouth and examined it; but I could find in it nought 
but what I had found in my own and other people’s. I 
also took some of the matter that was lodged between and 
against his teeth, and mixing it with his own spit, and also 
with fair water (in which there were no animalcules), I 
found an unbelievably great company of living animalcules, 
a-swimming more nimbly than any I had ever seen up to 
this time. The biggest sort (whereof there were a great 
plenty) bent their body into curves in going forwards, as 
in Fig. G. Moreover, the other animalcules were in such 
enormous numbers, that all the water (notwithstanding 
' water MS. vregen-water Dutch printed version. 
2 In olden times it was customary to speak of “ drinking” tobacco— 
) 
both in Holland and in England—though it meant “ smoking ” (as we now 
* Hoole (1798, p. 119)—with his usual squeamishness—purifies these 
coarse details into more polite observations upon “ the teeth of an old 
gentleman, who was very careless about keeping them clean. 
16 
