[ 554 ] 
tion, without ever giving the fmaileft marks of any- 
thing endowed with life. 
As I had little leifure, my experiments were nei- 
ther fo numerous nor fo well managed, as I could 
<■ have wifhed ; nor did I take notes of the event of any, 
except that of two, which I made upon millepedes 
and cantharides, fubftances much ufed in medicine, 
which renders obfervations upon them fo much the 
more interelting. 
May id, 1752, at eleven o’clock forenoon, I 
made an infufion of dried millepedes, or wood-lice, 
fuch as are commonly kept in our apothecaries fhops. 
Thefe I put unbruifed into a fmall phial, fo as to make 
it half full ; then poured upon them as much boiling 
water as filled it neck and all, Hopped it with a well 
mafticated cork, and put it into a pocket, where it 
was kept in a mild degree of warmth. I let it re- 
main till ten o’clock the lame evening, when I exa- 
mined a drop of the infufion with the higheft mag- 
nifier of a very good microfcope made by Mr. Clarke 
of Edinburgh. 1 found the whole fwarming with 
oblong, (lender, fiattifh pellucid animalcules, pretty 
nearly of the lame breadth throughout the whole 
length of their bodies, and without any appearance 
of a tail (fee Tab. XXII. Fig.i.) all evidently of the 
lame kind, though not all of the fame length and di- 
menfions, extremely vivid, and, as appeared pretty evi- 
dent to me, fpontaneous in their motions, which 
they performed in all directions in an undulatory, 
vermicular way. 
Upon obferving the fpeedy appearance of thefe ani- 
malcules, I wilhed to know, in how fhort a time they 
might be produced ; for which purpofe, 
3 May 
