EARLY DAYS OF THE MICROSCOPE 



have exposed by night until the following dawn to 

 the lunar moisture. Then examine it carefully with 

 the smicroscope and you will find the contracted 

 putridity to have been altered by the moon into 

 iimumerable wormlets of diverse size, which, how- 

 ever, would escape the sharpness of vision without 

 a good smicroscope. The same is true of cheese, 

 milk, vinegar and similar bodies of a putrifiable 

 nature. The smicroscope, however, must be no 

 ordinary one, but constructed with no less skill than 

 diligence, as is mine which represents objects one 

 thousand times greater than their true size." 



Experiment 11. — '' If you cut up a snake into 

 small parts and macerate with rain water, and then 

 expose it for several days to the sun and again 

 bury it under the earth for a whole day and night 

 and lastly examine the parts, separated and softened 

 by putridity, by means of a smicroscope you will 

 find the whole mass swarm with innumerable little 

 multiplying serpents so that even the sharpest eyes 

 cannot count them." 



Experiment III, — " Many authors claim that un- 

 washed sage is injurious, but I have discovered the 

 cause of this. For when, by means of the sun, I 

 minutely examined the nature of the plant, I found 

 the back of the leaves completely covered by raised 

 work as with the figure of a spider's web, and within 

 the water appeared infinitesimal animalcules, which 

 moving constantly came out of little buds or eggs." 



Experi7ncnt JV. — " If you examine a particle of 

 rotten wood under the sun, you will see an immense 



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