The LIFE of JOHN. SWAMMERDAM. _ ¥ii 
though he had formerly printed fome part of them in Ruylenburgh, and 
even in France, fo early as the year mpcLxvil. vi 
On the firft of May txxt1 he fent to the Royal Society of London three 
plates and fix figures, in which he had reprefented the womb of a human 
fubject, dedicating them at the fame time to that learned body. To them 
he added fome moft curious drawings of the fpermatic veffels, the tube of the 
womb, and the ovary. All thefe curious pieces had been fketched out in 
proteflor Van Horne’s houfe by the twenty-firft of January, mpc.ixvi; 
though not finifhed or illuftrated with proper explanations till the feventh of 
May mpcixx1. ‘Thus for the firft time was publifhed a fpecimen of a 
method, by which both arteries and veins, and their fineft ramifications, can 
be filled with a ceraceous matter, which not only renders thofe parts perfectly 
vifible, but even incorruptible: and our author, to procure due credit to his 
drawing, fent with them the uterus itfelf prepared according to this his new 
method. His motive in all this proceeding, was to have the opinion of 
learned and equitable judges of fuch kind of performances. Another thing 
_ he had in view, was to convince the world that it was indebted to him as the 
firft inventor, for the difcoveries relating to the {permatic veffels, which the 
celebrated Van Horne had before publifhed in his Prodromus. But above all 
things, he by this meatis endeavoured to refute what Regnier de Graaf had 
written again{t him, with the greateft bitternefs, concerning fome difcoveries 
in regard to the organs of generation; and for this purpofe he appealed to 
the judgment of the members of the Royal Society; to whom, as far as it 
concerned him, he gave full power and authority to decide the con- 
troverfyc: 2 
About this time he made a great many other very ufeful anatomical dif 
coveries: in particular he diffected a great number of fifhes, with a view chiefly 
of difcovering their liver, pancreas and melt ; and in the courfe of his inquiries 
very often found in fome a very large pancreas, with a great number of {pacious 
and wide-mouthed duéts opening into the inteftines: but above all things 
he applied himfelf with the greateft diligence to find out by every trial that 
promifed any fuccefs, the true nature and properties of the pancreatic fluid, 
of which he fent many bottles full to the celebrated Charles Drelincourt, then 
profeflor of anatomy and phyfic in the univerfity of Leyden. All thefe 
particulars may be feen in the fecond part of the Private College of 
Amfterdam, publifhed by C. Commelin inthe year mpcixxiir ; for there is 
{carce any thing in all that performance, for which the world is not indebted 
to our author; who there very mildly and modeftly refutes de Graaf and 
Sylvius’s accounts of the pancreatic fluid, though he formerly ufed to treat 
with great harfhnefs thofe who contradiéted his fentiments, as appears in the 
literary controverftes he before this had maintained with de Graaf, Gafper, 
Bartholin, and others. But religion and piety had by this time got the 
better of our author’s warm and ftubborn temper. Happening to read fome 
books which the then famous Antonia Bourignon had a little before publithed, 
they made fo great an impreffion upon him, that a ftri@ compliance with 
all the duties of a good chriftian was now become his principal concern. 
He began to hate and fhun all thofe things which men moft covet and run 
after, but bent his endeavours more particularly to fupprefs the unruly 
paflions of the mind, and above all that infatiable ambition which makes us 
fo defirous of a fuperiority over others, and which therefore, as the root’ of 
all evil, he was defirous utterly to extirpate and deftroy. All this time 
Antonia Bourignon happened to be in Holftein, accompanied by John Tielens, 
te a native 
