Volume 1

Alle de brieven van Antoni van Leeuwenhoek / uitgegeven, geïllustreerd en van aanteekeningen voorzien door een Commissie van Nederlandsche geleerden.

  • Antonie van Leeuwenhoek
Date:
1939-
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Alle de brieven van Antoni van Leeuwenhoek / uitgegeven, geïllustreerd en van aanteekeningen voorzien door een Commissie van Nederlandsche geleerden. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    that twas needless, there should be a cavity in the Optic Nerve, through which the Animal Spirits, representing the species or images in the Eye, might pass into the brain17). But I imagined it might be performed, for example, after this manner; viz. I represent to my self a tall Beer-glass full of Water: This Glass I imagine to be one of the filaments of the Optic Nerve, and the Water in the Glass to be the globuls of which the filaments of that Nerve are made up, and then, the Water in the Glass being toucht on its surface with the finger, that to this contact did resemble the action of a visible object upon the Eye, whereby the outermost globuls of the fibres in the Optic Nerve next to the Eye are toucht. This contact of the Water made by the finger cannot be said to touch and move only the surface of the Water, but we must also grant, that all the water in the Glass is moved thereby, and even the bottom of the Glass comes to suffer, and to be more pressed by it, than it was before the finger touched the Water, and that also all the parts of [the] Water [in the glass] are moved thereby. This motion then of the Water, said to be made by the contact of the finger, I imagine to be like the motion of a visible object made upon the soft globuls, that lie at the end of the Optic Nerve next the Eye, which outermost globuls do communicate the like motion to the other globuls so as to convey it to the Brain. An attempt to explain the conduction of the sensation of sight. 17) In the previous letter (dated September 7th) L. still spoke of the optic nerve as serving to supply nutrition. The following explanation of what we now ascribe to transmission by irritation, is very interesting. [H.]