406 
Notes on Portrait-plates 
Athanasius Kircher 
1601-1680. 
(Portrait-plate X.) 
A classical scholar, Egyptologist, astrologist, mathematician and natural 
philosopher, Athanasius Kircher was born at Geisa, near Fulda, on 2 May, 
1601. He died as a teacher of mathematics in Rome on 30 October, 1680. 
He was a Jesuit, and held a professorship at Wurzburg (1631), where he 
published his Ars Magnesia dealing with “ Magnetismus.” Ultimately through 
the influence of Cardinal Berberini, he went as a teacher to the Collegium 
Romanum, Rome, where he founded the collection known to this day as the 
“Museum Kircherianum.” 
Biologists will associate his name with the “ experimentum mirabile,” i.e. 
the hypnotisation of the fowl, which he illustrates in his Physiol. Kircheriana 
(1680), the fowl lying prone with its outstretched head on a line drawn on 
flagstones. Moreover, his writings had great influence in establishing the 
doctrine of “contagium animatum.” In his Scrutinum Physico-Medicum 
contagiosae luis quae dicitur Pestis, etc. (Lipsiae, 1671), whose Introduction is 
dated 22 February, 1658, by Kircher, he states (p. 25) that he found countless 
numbers of minute worms in putrefying substances. Upon this he based 
various conclusions, regarding the etiology of the plague which raged in Italy 
in 1656, for, with his simple microscope, he reported having discovered un¬ 
countable numbers of minute worms in the blood and bubo-pus of plague 
patients. No doubt Kircher merely saw the blood corpuscles and leucocytes 
or pus cells and called these “worms,” but his teaching carried great weight 
and doubtless gave rise to the view subsequently expressed by Robert Boyle 
(vide infra). Our portrait is taken from Kircher’s Mundus Subterraneus (1665). 
Further particulars regarding his publications and biography will be found in 
the Index Catalogue of the Surgeon-GeneraVs Library, Washington. 
Robert Boyle 
1627-1691. 
(Portrait-plate XI.) 
Natural philosopher, chemist, and versatile genius, the Hon. Robert 
Boyle was born at Lismore Castle, Waterford, on 25 January, 1627, as the 
seventh son and fourteenth child of the first Earl of Cork. He died 30 Decem¬ 
ber, 1691, in London, where he lies buried in St Martiivs-in-the-Fields. Refer¬ 
ences to his contributions to science, etc., will be found in the Dictionary of 
National Biography, vi. 118-123. His complete works, with his correspondence 
and a Life by Dr Birch were published (1744) in 5 vols. He took a leading 
part in founding the Royal Society. 
To biologists he will be remembered for his fundamental discoveries on the 
physiology of respiration, but in addition he wrote with prophetic insight 
