THE 



EDINBURGH NEW 

 PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL. 



Analysis of Professor Ehrenberg's Researches on the hifusoria. 

 By Meredith Gairdner, M. D. Communicated by the 

 Author *. (With a Plate.) 



xLver since Hooke's great discovery of the microscope, and a 

 partial acquaintance with the prodigious variety and number of 

 self-existent, self-moving, forms which it disclosed to the eye of 

 the scrupulous naturalist, the attention of physiologists and me- 

 taphysicians has been more or less excited at different periods, 

 with the hope that it might one day reveal the secret of the 

 living principle in the ultimate atoms of organized matter, or in 

 the minute animalcules, where it long seemed as if vitality was 

 reduced to its ultimate expression — voluntary motion. The ob- 

 servations of Leeuwenhoeck, Hartsoeker and Needham, on the 

 seminal animalcules, suggested to BufTon the idea that every 

 animal was made up of an aggregation of these almost invisible 



• "We have great pleasure in laying before our readers this excellent ac- 

 count of the admirable researches of Ehrenberg, hitherto known only in this 

 country by the short notices in this Journal. Our accomplished young friend 

 Dr Gairdner, during his late residence on the continent, paid a visit to Ber- 

 lin, where he cultivated the acquaintance of Ehrenberg, who explained to 

 him fully, by prelections and tlie exhioition of the animals, (in particular 

 the anatomy of the Vortkella citrina, Mull. ; Rotifer vulgaris of Schrank ; and 

 Hydatina senlaj, his irajjortant discoveries and views. 



JULY — SF.PTEMBEU 1831. O 



