00 PHILOSOPHICAL TKANSACTIONS, [aNNO 1673. 



Some Observations made hy a Microscope, contrived by M. Leetcenhoek* in Hol- 

 land, lately communicated by Dr. Regnerus de Graaf. N° 94, p. 6037. 



1. The mould upon skin, flesh, or other things, has been by some repre- 

 sented to be shot out in the form of the stalks of vegetables, so as that some of 

 those stalks appeared with round knobs at the end, some with blossom-like 

 leaves. But I observe that such mould shoots up first with a straight transpa- 

 rent stalk, in which stalk is driven up a globous substance, which for the most 

 part places itself at the top of the stalk, and is followed by another globule, driving 

 out the first either sideways or at the top ; and that is succeeded by a third and 



* Antony Van JCeewenhoek, so highly celebrated for his curious microscopical observations, was 

 a Dutch gentleman, of Delph in Holland. He was born in the year l632, and died in 1723, aged 

 91 years, Leewenhoek was not, properly speaking, a man of letters,* but from the extraordinary 

 assiduity with which he pursued his researches into the minuter parts of Nature, and tlie striking 

 novelty of the curious observations which he published, his name is perhaps more frequently quoted 

 by philosophers and naturalists, than that of any other writer of his time. This celebrated observer 

 had the good fortune to live at a period, when the instrument, by which he obtained his fame, was 

 yet in some degree in its infancy. He applied himself witli unremitted care to tlie grinding and 

 polishing into a state of perfection the simple lens, as being the best calculated for accurate investiga- 

 tion} and less liable to those deceptions which a composition of glasses sometimes occasions. So many 

 and so extraordinary were the discoveries of Leewenhoek, that he may be said to have brought into 

 view a new world in science ; and such was the general truth and fidelity of his observations and 

 descriptions, and the respect paid to his communications, that he has been not unaptly complimented 

 with the title of the Delphic Oracle.f Yet, if his works be inspected with critical attention, tliey 

 will be found by no means free from considerable errors ; and he sometimes appears to have de- 

 ceived himself in a very singular manner. Thus, according to Boerhaave, he once maintained that 

 tlie veins had a pulsation and tlie arteries none. He is said to have been a person of amiable manners, 

 and of great integrit)'^ of character. At his decease he bequeathed, as a legacy to the Royal Society, 

 a curious collection of some of his best microscopes, to the number of twenty six. These were all 

 prepared by his own hand, and were mounted in small silver frames. A description of them may be 

 found in Vols, 32 and 41 of the Philosophical Transactions, as well as in Baker's work, entitled 

 E7nployment for the Microscope. 



* This seems admitted by his panegyrical poet. 



" Quoque magis mirer, duris exercita fatis, 

 " Arctaque, nee studiis apta juventa fuit." 

 It is also confirmed by a letter from a Mr. Molineux, inserted in the 4th volume of Dr. Birch's History of the Royal 

 Society, in which Leewenhoek is expressly said to have understood no language but his own. 



f " Rursus apud Batavos fundunt oracula Delphi ; 

 " Hie habitat Phoebus, Grsecia muta jacet. 

 " Hie habitat Phoebus ; non iste per ora Sibyllae 



" Doctus apud vanos non nisi vana loqui : 

 ** Clarior et melior, solidas qui condidit artes, 

 * ' Delphos ingenii fertilitate beat." 



Leewenhoekii, Opera Omnia, 

 Lugd. Batav. 1722, 



