i The LIFE of JOHN SWAMMERDAM. 
a manner from his childhood, with a tafte for natural hiftory, fo that not 
content with the furvey of thofe curiofities that his father had purchafed, he 
foon began to make a collection of his own by catching fome, and buying or 
bartering for others, all which he difpofed in certain clafles; and compared 
with the accounts given of them by the beft writers. However, when grown | 
up, he very ferioufly attended to his anatomical and medical ftudies, but all 
the while with a mind bent.on attempts of the greateft importance. Ac- 
cordingly he {pent both day and night in difcovering, catching, and examin- 
ing, the flying infeéts proper to thofe two different times, not only in the 
province of Holland, but in that of Gueldres, and in the the province of 
Utrecht. He ranfacked with this view the air, the ‘land, and the water; 
fields, meadows, paftures, corn grounds, downs, waftes, fand hills; rivers, 
ponds, wells, lakes, feas, and their fhores and banks; trees, plants, ruins, 
caves, uninhabited places, and even bog-houfes, in fearch of Eggs, Worms, 
Nymphs, and Butterflies; in order to make himfelf acquainted with the nefts 
of infects, their food, manner of living, diforders, changes or mutations, 
and their feveral ways or methods of propagation; and, indeed, while yet 
avery young man, he had made more difcoveries in regard to all thefe par- 
ticulars, and obtained more certainty, than the known authors of all the 
preceding ages put. together. This, however incredible it may appear to 
-fome, is notwithftanding matter of fact. Perfons properly qualified to judge 
of his fuccefs, have honoured it with the fame teftimony. 
Our author, thus initiated in natural hiftory, came to Leyden in the year 
MDCLI, to purfue his ftudies in the Dutch univerfity, of which he was 
admitted a member the eleventh of O@ober, and attended affiduoufly for two 
_years together the lectures in furgery of the celebrated John Van Horne, and 
‘thofe in phyfic of Francis Sylvius de la Boe; and his progrefs in thofe 
noble ftudies was fo anfwerable to his diligence, that on the eleventh of 
October mpcxxi, he was admitted a candidate of phyfic in that famous uni- 
verfity, after undergoing the examinations prefcribed on that occafion. Our 
author, on his arrival at Leyden, contracted a friendfhip with that great 
‘anatomift Nicholas Steno, and ever after lived with him in the greateft 
intimacy. He likewife commenced a friendfhip with Rynier de Graaf, 
another eminent anatomift; but emulation, or rather envy, afterwards 
changed it to an inveterate hatred. The curiofities of anatomy now began to 
make a confiderable impreffion on our author, formed it feems by nature 
herfelf for the cultivation and improvement of that noble {cience ; fo that 
having gone through his courfes with the moft fudden and unexpected fuccefs, 
he immediately began to confider how the parts of the body prepared by 
diflection, could be preferved and kept in conftant order and readinefs for 
anatomical demonftrations; as fuch a difcovery would free him not only 
from the trouble of repeated diffections, but likewife from the difficulty of 
obtaining frefh fubje@s, and the difagreeable neceflity of infpeéting fuch as 
were already putrefied. And herein he fucceeded, as he had done before, in| 
his nice contrivances to difle@ and otherwife manage the minuteft infeats. 
Sylvius, the moft diligent anatomift of his time, made good ule of this our 
author’s great art and indefatigable induftry ; but was chiefly delighted at his 
extraordinary fkill in difle@ing Frogs; for Swammerdam had demonftrated to 
him by a@tual experiment, fo early as the fifteenth of January of this year, 
that in this animal the air at the time of infpiration could be derived to the 
artery and pulmonary vein, and thence to both regions of the heart. See 
Sylv. Difp. Med. VIL. §. uxxix. — LXXXvIII. | | 
After 
