vii The LIFE of JOHN SWAMMERDAM. 
a native of Amfterdam, with whom Swammerdam had been long acquainted. 
He therefore writ to his friend the eighteenth of March mpcixxri, to beg 
he might procure him Antonia’s good will, and leave to write to her on his 
{piritual concerns; and having obtained this favour, he accordingly writ to 
her the twenty-ninth of April following, and received an anfwer to his letter 
dated the feventeenth of Auguft. Her advice wrought fo great a change in 
him, that at that time he thought of nothing but of obtaining from God a holy 
peace of mind, fincerely grieving that he had loft fo much time in the fervice - 
of the world. After this he writ many more letters to Antonia, who very 
gracioufly anfwered them. About this time he was, if I am not miftaken, 
the firft that difcovered a thing of very great importance, for he found that 
the hernia in both men and women never proceeds from a rupture of the 
peritoneum, but that the peritoneum alone is: extended over the part where 
the feminal vefiels; enclofed in one cafe or fheath, but which before this lay clofe 
under the peritoneum, fall from it towards the fcrotum. Now, if in this 
cafe the peritoneum happens to infinuate itfelf into that wide paffage, by 
which the fpermatic cord falls down towards the teftes, it there, whatever 
- caufe may prefs it, forms a facculus cecus, or blind bag, on account of its 
wonderful extenfibility, and the fmoothnefs of the cavity made for it by the | 
defcent of the {permatic cord. The ecphyfis once formed, grows larger and 
larger, as the caufe which firft produced it increafes; and continuing to 
keep clofe to the {permatic cord, follows it towards the ferotum, above the 
os pubis, and along the outfide of the mufcles. If this ecphyfis ftops at 
the groin, it forms what is called a bubonoceles; but if it defcends to the 
{crotum, an ofcheoceles ; befides which, it obtains a variety of other names, 
from the different fubftances that may happen to fall into it, fuch as the ° 
omentum, the inteftine, air or water. The fame is the cafe in women, 
except that the defcent is made along the femoral veflels, (See Schraderi, 
Obferv. Decad. II. Obferv. rv. v.) where there is a very exaét drawing to 
reprefent the nature of this diforder.. Many eminent perfons have fince made 
pretenfions to the honour of this difcovery, but the account I have given of 
it appears the moft probable. In this book too there is another obfervation 
of our author equally important; for he there mentions his having feen two 
cicatrices in the ovary of a woman, that had been brought to bed of twins ; 
which it 1s duely to be remarked happened at the fame time. In the fame 
colleétion there is our author’s contrivance for preferving the parts, or anato- 
mical preparations in balfam. For all thefe reafons, the editor thought 
proper to dedicate this work, publifhed in mpcuixx1v, to Swammerdam, who 
~ was the chief contributor to it. Our author, moreover; in the year MDcLxxit1, 
had exhibited to the illuftrious Arnold Syen, profeflor of botany in the 
univerfity of Leyden, the feminal little bags of Fern, and the delineations he 
had made of them. I intreat the reader to view and confider attentively the 
defcriptions and figures contained in this book, and compare them with 
thofe given a long time after by fome of the greateft botanifts. There 
cannot be a greater refemblance between two eggs, than there is between 
our author’s performance this way, and thofe that followed. ‘The fame things 
might have been feen in France, nor is it impoflible that they might have 
been defcribed there too. The laft day of September of this year, our 
author finifhed his treatife on Bees, which proved fo fatiguing a performance, 
that he never after recovered even the appearance of his former health and 
vigour: and indeed it was an undertaking too great for the ftrongeft 
conftitution, to be continually employed by day in making pele ae 
| almoft 
