174 THE MINUTE ANATOMISTS 



later observed in tlie chimpanzee " those spiral lines 

 which are usually in a man's." Grew and Tyson had 

 between them laid the foundations of a scientific account 

 of finger-tips, but these hints lay unnoticed for nearly 

 two hundred years. 



JAN JACOBZ SWAMMEEDAM 

 1637-1680 



Historia Insectorum Generalis, ofte Algemeene Verhandeling van de Bloed- 

 loose Dierkens. Sm. 4to. Utrecht. 1669. 



Ephemeri vita, of afbeeldingh van's mensohen leven, vertoont in de wonder- 

 baarlycke historie van het vliegent ende eendaghlevent Haft of Oever-aas, &o. 

 8vo. Amst. 1675. 



Biblia Naturae, sive Historia Insectorum . . . accedit prajfatio in qua vjtam 

 auctoris descripsit Hermannus Boerhaave . . . Latinam versionem adscripsit 

 Hieronimus David Gaubius. 2 vols. Fol. Leydse. 1737-8. 



Swammerdam was born at Amsterdam. His father 

 was an apothecary, who had expended much time and 

 money upon a private museum, for which his own trade 

 and the world-wide commerce of Amsterdam gave special 

 opportunity. The boy was originally intended for the 

 Protestant ministry, but when he grew up, he got leave 

 to study medicine instead. Natural history, which was 

 afterwards to become his passion, was even in youth one 

 of his chief occupations, and he collected and studied 

 insects with enthusiasm. His father, the apothecary, 

 probably found the services of a zealous young naturalist 

 very advantageous to the growth of the museum, and 

 Swammerdam continued to live at home till he was 

 twenty-four, when he was sent to Leyden as a medical 

 student. Here he made the acquaintance of the Dane, 

 Nicholas Stensen, whose name when Latinised became 

 Steno, and who, in 1661, the very year of Swammerdam's 

 matriculation, discovered the duct of the parotid gland. 



