SWAMMERDAM’S INVENTIONS. 
133 
the natural sciences. How cure the sick man unless you understood the 
healthy ? And how understand the latter without studying side by side 
the inferior animals which translate and explain disease ? But can one 
see into such delicate mysteries with the eye alone ? Does not the feeble¬ 
ness of the sense of vision lead us astray ? The serious creation of 
science would suppose a reform of our senses and the creation of optics. 
A veritable creation! Look at the microscope. Is it a simple 
spy-glass ? To the eyes which the instrument possessed, Swammerdam 
added two arms, one of which bears the glass and the other the object. 
He himself says, in reference to his more difficult investigations, “ that 
he had attempted to obtain the assistance of another person, but that 
such assistance proved, in fact, an obstacle.” It was for this reason 
that he organized a dumb man of copper, a discreet servant ready for 
every work; thanks to whom the observer disposes of supplementary 
hands and numerous eyes of different degrees of power. In the same 
manner as the birds expand or contract their visual organs, either to 
grasp objects in a whole or to scrutinize with searching glance the 
smallest detail, Swammerdam created the method of successive enlarge¬ 
ment; the art of employing lenses of different sizes and varying cur¬ 
vature, which permit the observer to see en masse, and to study each 
separate portion, and finally to survey the whole for the purpose of 
properly replacing the details and reconstituting the general harmony. 
Was this all ? No. To observe dead bodies, time is required; but 
then time robs us of them. Death, which seemingly conduces to study 
by its immobility, is deceitful; it fixes the mask for a moment, and the 
object beneath melts away. Now came a new creation of Swammer¬ 
dam’s. He not only taught us to see and investigate, but he devised 
means for our permanent investigation. By preservative injections he 
fixed these ephemeral objects; he compelled time to halt, and forced 
death to endure. The Czar Peter, who, a long time afterwards, saw T 
in the dissecting-room of one of Swammerdam’s disciples the beautiful 
body, supple and fresh, of a little child, with its exquisite carnation tint, 
thought that the rose was living, and could not be prevented from 
embracing it. 
All this is soon said; but it was long to do. How many attempts ! 
9 B 
