170 
MR. NEWPORT ON THE IMPREGNATION OF 
of these bodies to the Royal Society*, and regarded them as in some way essential to 
the fecundation of the ova ; although his conjecture that they became the future 
embryos was erroneous. Eighty-five years afterwards. Dr. Parsons, Foreign Secre- 
tary of the Royal Society, believed it to be “ extreme nonsense to imagine that the 
insignificant animals called spermatic animals can contribute anything towards pro- 
pagation,” &c.'f', and it was not until the publication of the observations of Leder- 
muller:|:, a few years after that, that the production of spermatozoa, as part of the 
fluid, began to be admitted. Dr. Hill, in the notes to his English translation of 
Swammerdam’s Biblia Naturae §, two years later, mentioned them as abundant in the 
Frog at the season of pairing, but that it was then the fashion to doubt even their 
existence. Yet Needham, ten years after this, while acknowledging that these bodies 
are found in the fluid of all animals, adopting the views of Buffon and Daubenton, 
stated that they do not exist until after the fluid is removed from the vessels, and 
decomposition has commenced \\. And later still, even in our own time, their existence 
has been denied in the most positive manner by Sir Everard Home^. Spallanzani, 
however, was so well acquainted with them, as found in the Frog and Toad, that he 
has recorded his great surprise at not observing them in the latter on two occasions**. 
Bonnet'J~'|~ and Gleichen:|::}:, also, w^ell knew them to abound in the males of animals 
of distinct species at the season of impregnation, but discovered that they are usually 
absent in hybrids, a fact that has since been confirmed by Prevost and Dumas §§. 
These two observers, regarding the spermatic bodies, with Leewenhoek, as essential 
elements of the semen, believed that they actually penetrate bodily into the ovum, and 
become by metamorphosis part of the future embryo. Still more recently it has been 
stated byDr.BARRY|||l to this Society that he has actually seen the spermatozoon within 
the ovum, a statement which my own observations do not enable me to confirm. 
Before any satisfactory conclusion could be arrived at respecting the importance 
of the spermatic bodies in impregnation, it was necessary to ascertain their nature, 
to trace their mode of development and production, to establish the periods of their 
occurrence in different classes of animals, and to learn something of their chemical 
* Philosophical Transactions, 1667, vol. xii. p. 1040. 
f Philosophical Observations on the Analogy between the Propagation of Animals and that of Vegetables. 
8vo. 1752 (note), p. 44. 
I Physikalische Beobachtungen der Samenthierchen. Nuremb. 1756. And also, “ Beytrage zu denen 
Beobachtungen deerer Saamenthiergen und Kleiste Aale gehdrig. 12mo. Frankfurt und Leipzig, 1759.” 
§ Book of Nature, folio, part 2 (note), p. 105, 1758. 
II Notes des Nouvelles Recherches sur les Decouvertes Microscopiques de I’Abbe Spallanzani par M. 
Needham. Lond. 1769, tom. i. p. 196. 
^ Lectures on Comparative Anatomy, 4to, vol. v. pp. 332 and 337. 1828. 
** Dissertations relative to the Natural History of Animals and Vegetables. Lond. 1789, p. 151. 
ff “ Contemplations de laNature and “ CEuvres d’Histoire Naturelle,” 4to, tom. iii. p. 454, &c. 1779. 
Ahhandlung uber der Samen- und Infusionsthierchen. Nuremb. 1788. 
§§ Annales des Sciences Naturelles (Prem. Serie), tom. i. p. 182, 1824. 
nil Proceedings of the Royal Society, vol. iv. p. 432. Phil. Trans, part 1, 1843, p. 33. 
