48 NEHEMIAH GREW 



at the Linnean Society, on the very day that Grew presented 

 his treatise in print, the Secretary of the Royal Society received 

 Marcello Malpighi's manuscript dealing with the same subject. 

 Priority can however be fairly claimed for the Englishman, since 

 he had submitted his treatise to the Society in manuscript earlier 

 in the year. This question of priority, and also the question 

 whether Grew was guilty of plagiarism from Malpighi's writings, 

 has been much discussed at different times. Schleiden^ in par- 

 ticular brought forward charges of the most serious nature 

 against Nehemiah Grew's good faith. These accusations were, 

 however, dealt with in detail in a pamphlet by Pollender- in 

 1868, and shown to be groundless, Schleiden's information 

 about the circumstances being wholly inaccurate. There is 

 now practically no doubt that Grew was an independent worker, 

 and was only definitely indebted to Malpighi, in so far as he 

 himself acknowledges it. In the preface to the second treatise, 

 for instance, he mentions the Italian botanist, and remarks in 

 speaking of the " Air-vessels " " the manner of their Spiral 

 Conformation (not observable but by a Microscope) I first 

 learned from Him, who hath given a very elegant Description 

 of them." If Grew had been a wholesale plunderer from 

 Malpighi's writings, he would scarcely have been likely to have 

 acknowledged indebtedness on a special point. It must be con- 

 fessed, however, that judging by present-day standards of scientific 

 etiquette, Grew should have referred more fully to the works ^ of 

 the Italian author, in his final book. The Anatotny of Plants. 



The Anatomy of Vegetables Begun contains more that is of 

 interest from a morphological than from a strictly anatomical 



* M. J. Schleiden, Griindziige der wissenschaftlichen Botanik, Vol. I. p. 198, 

 1842. The incorrect statement that Grew was Secretary of the Royal Society at the 

 time that Malpighi's manuscript was received by that body, is also repeated in the 

 English translation of Schleiden's work [Schleiden's /'r/^/iSj of Scientific Botany, 

 translated by Edwin Lankester, London, 1849, P- S^]- 



"^ Aloys Pollender, IVem gebiihrt die Prioritdt in der Anatomie der Pflanzen dem 

 Grew oder defn Malpighi ? Bonn, 1868. 



3 Marcelius Malpighi, Anatome Plantartim, 2 pts, London, 1875 and 1879 (see 

 also Marcelius Malpighi, Die Anatomic der Pflanzen, Bearbeitet von M. Mobius, 

 Leipzig, 1901. In this little book the more important parts of Malpighi's work are 

 translated into German, and a number of the figures reproduced). 



