the Blood in some Mammifera. S63 



of interest to science, that the study of it must naturally fix 

 the attention of a great number of physiologists ; and when 

 the discovery of the microscope came to enlarge the field of 

 their investigations, they did not fail to inquire if this power- 

 ful instrument could not reveal to them some new character 

 in the nourishing fluid of animals. This hope has not been 

 disappointed, and, by the aid of the microscope, one can easily 

 convince himself that the blood, far from being formed only 

 of a liquid holding different substances in solution, is essen- 

 tially composed of innumerable solid corpuscles, which swim 

 suspended in a particular fluid, and which aff'ect constant forms. 

 Malpighi appears to be the first who remarked the existence 

 of these corpuscles ; he did not, however, form an exact idea 

 of their nature, and it was principally to a man of a much less 

 elevated genius, Leeuwenhoek, that the merit of the demon- 

 stration, if not the discovery, of this truth belongs. His first 

 observations go back to 1673, and this date is also that of our 

 first precise notions concerning the form and nature of the 

 globules of the blood. 



Jurin, Senac, Muys, Fontana, Hewson, afterwards added 

 new facts to those established by Leeuwenhoek, and rectified 

 some errors into which this observer had fallen. The re- 

 searches of Hewson, above all, deserve to be mentioned with 

 praise ; and from this series of labours has resulted a body of 

 valuable physiological knowledge. But towards the end of 

 last century, the microscope had the fate of many other new 

 inventions. After having its utility exaggerated, and having 

 been employed to support the foolish speculations of genius, 

 men fell into the opposite extreme ; they magnified its incon- 

 veniences and dangers ; then they almost entirely neglected its 

 employment, and only spoke with distrust of the greater 

 number of the results obtained by its aid. They even went 

 the length of calling in question the existence of the globules 

 of the blood, and ascribed to optical illusions what Leeuwen- 

 hoek and his successors had said concerning them. For a 



8ur une note de M, Mandl, relatif i la form des globules du sang chez 

 quelques Mammifires, par M. Milne Edwards." Ann. des Sc. Nat. t. xi. 

 Jan. 1839. Pp. 46, &c. 



