SOME EARLY MICROSCOPISTS 



this period from which he suffered more or less 

 severely all the rest of his life. He discovered the 

 breathing tubes of insects and that when they are 

 covered with grease the insect will die " in the time 

 that one can say the Lord's Prayer"; the heart, 

 the silk glands, the development of wings and legs 

 were all discovered for the first time by this untiring 

 worker, aided by his simple microscope. 



Pages could be filled with accounts of Malpighi's 

 other scientific work on the structure of the lung, 

 the liver and kidney, the life of the liver fluke and 

 a hundred and one other subjects. Though un- 

 doubtedly a great and clever microscopist, the 

 general estimate seems to be that his work had 

 little influence upon the scientific world. The main 

 reason is that he was ahead of his time; men of 

 the day concluded, for instance, that in his Anatomy 

 of Plants he had said the last word on the subject, 

 that there was no more to be learned. An English 

 worker, Nehemiah Grew, carried the Italian scien- 

 tist's studies of plant structure a little further and 

 his Anatomy of Plants contains many new and often 

 accurate observations. His studies also led him to 

 discover the structure of the ridges and sweat pores 

 of the human hand, in fact Grew may be looked 

 upon as the originator of the study of finger prints. 



A Dutchman, Jan Jacobz Swammerdam by name, 

 and a contemporary of Grew, was undoubtedly the 

 most accurate observer amongst these old-time 

 microscopists. Despite ill health, his enthusiasm 

 was unbounded, and a friend wrote concerning 



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