210 



THE AMERICAN MONTHLY 



[Noveinber, I 



this truth is, iu his work, much 

 clouded by the traditional fancies 

 of the asje concerning the "vital 

 spirit." For this assertion, Servetus 

 and his book, Christianismi Res- 

 titiitio, were burned the following 

 year, and only two copies of this 

 curious book are now extant. His 

 discovery would, no doubt, have 

 fallen into oblivion, had not Rialdus 

 Columbus, 1559, publicly corrob- 

 orated it. Light was now dimly 

 dawning upon anatomists, and it 

 seems queer to us, in this progres- 

 sive age, that when, besides the 

 above, Andrew Cesalpinus noticed 

 the swelling of veins below ligatu- 

 res, and Fabricius, of Acquapen- 

 dente, showed that the valves of 

 veins discovered by Sylvius opened 

 toward the heart — it seems queer, 

 I say, that Fabricius did not dis- 

 cover the circulation, but left that 

 glory to be reaped by his pupil, 

 WiUiam Harvey, 1616-1628. So 

 true is it, observes Cuvier, ' that 

 we are often on the brink of a dis- 

 covery without suspecting it ;' so 

 true is it, I might add, that a 

 certain succession of time and of 

 persons is generally necessary to 

 familiarize men with one thought 

 before they can advance to that 

 which is next in order. * * * 

 " The corpuscles, from the singu- 

 larity of their appearence and orga- 

 nization, have attracted an unusual 

 share of attention, and have been 

 the subject of almost innumerable 

 observations and experiments. They 

 were discovered by Swammerdam 

 in 1658, afterward by Malpighi in 

 the hedge-hog, in 1661, who at hrst 

 thought them to be globules of fat. 

 Leeuwenhoek, in 1673, detected 

 them in human blood and examined 

 them very critically, and it was 

 from this time that their study 

 commenced in earnest. They were 

 first described as globules floating 

 in the liquor sanguinis ; but, as 



observations were multiplied, errors 

 and absurdities were advanced pari m 

 jpassu. Leeuwenhoek himself in- \ 

 vented a fanciful hypothesis, which 

 had a long and powerful influence 

 over the most enlightened of phy- 

 sicians — that the red corpuscles of 

 the blood were composed of a series 

 of particles descending in regular 

 gradations : thus, each corpuscle 

 was supposed to be made up of six 

 particles of serum, and each particle 

 of serum of six particles of lymph, 

 etc., etc. This hypothesis, for which 

 to our mind there is not tlie slight- 

 est foundation, was so suited to the 

 mechanical genius of the age that 

 it formed the basis of many learned 

 speculations, and even a feature in 

 some pathological ideas of Boer- 

 haave. It maintained its hold until 

 the time of Haller, when it was re- 

 placed by another one. 



"Next to the observations of 

 Leeuwenhoek, those of Hewson 

 were the most elaborate, and had 

 at least the appearance of great 

 accuracy. He described the "red 

 particles " as consisting of a solid 

 centre surrounded by a vesicle filled 

 with a fluid. He informs us that 

 by adding water to them they swell 

 out. He also mentions the etfect of 

 chemical agents on their form, etc. 

 * * * The red corpuscles were 

 also examined by Torre, Monro, 

 and Dr. Young. Torre supposed 

 them to be flattened, annular bodies 

 composed of parts cemented to- 

 gether. To Monro they exibited 

 the appearence of circular flattened 

 disks with a dark spot in the centre 

 — due, he conceived, not to a per- 

 foration, as Torre had imagined, but 

 to a depression. * * * 



" For many years the red corpu- 

 scles we indisputably held to have a 

 definite cell-wall ; but some time 

 past, notably in the last few years, 

 a change in opinion has been made, 

 and now in most of the text-books 



