HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT OF IMMUNOLOGY 9 



medicine in the direction of the invisible world 

 The earliest of the microscopists was the Jesuit 

 priest Kircher, who was probably the first to 

 employ the microscope in investigating the 

 causes of disease. Another early worker with 

 the microscope was Hooke, a mechanical genius 

 who anticipated many modern discoveries and 

 inventions. The greatest of the microscopists, 

 however, was Malpighi (1628-94) the founder 

 of histology. Famed in biology for his works 

 on the anatomy of the silkworm and the mor- 

 phology of plants, he made an epoch in medicine 

 by his investigations of the embryology of the 

 chick and the histology and physiology of the 

 glands and viscera. 



THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 



The great Swedish botanist Linneus (1707- 

 78) gave the most concise descriptions of plants 

 and animals in all natural history. 



The starting point of modern embryology was 

 the work of Wolff (1733-94) who discovered the 

 Wolffian bodies. With the advent of John Hunter 

 (1728-93), surgery ceased to be regarded as a 

 mere technical mode of treatment and began to 

 take its place as a branch of scientific medicine 



