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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    I have put before my Microscope a piece of such a dried18) Optic Nerve of a Cow, and how it appeared, you will see by the picture hereby transmitted unto you. A, B, C, D is the circumference of the Optic Nerve, which did not dry round-ways, but somewhat oblong on the side C, D. E, and all the places that are left white and lucid, are cavities in the dried Nerve, and which I imagine to have been filaments, and out of which, for the greatest part, the soft globuls have been exhaled19). F, are particles or globuls, which are in the little holes of the filaments in many places, and such as have not been exhaled: Of which some do lie on the side of the hollownesses, others lie round about a cavity20), others lie cross a cavity, as G. All these particles were eminently transparent. About A, B, C, D, there are near the edge of the Nerve some transparent winding 21) stroaks22). [Transaction No. 106, where what I have said about the brains is criticised, has come to hand: The objection can be raised that the narrow tube will change and impair the natural texture of the cerebral matter”23). I admit that one could not observe the com¬ ponent parts of the brain if the diameter of the glass tube were three as against a diameter of one in the case of a cerebral globule. Transverse section of the optic nerve. fig. VIII. Defends his manner of examining cerebral substance. 18) The Dutch text has “of the before-mentioned dried optic nerve’’; the fragment “of the optic nerve’’. 19) There is a comma after “exhaled” in the fragment. The following passage from “F, are particles” down to “been exhaled” is absent. 20) The words “others lie round about a cavity” are not in the fragment. 21) “Winding” is not in the fragment. 22) Here the fragment ends, the concluding words being “Sir ... etc. and was signed Antonj Leeuwenhoeck”. [M.] 23) Cf. note 42 to the letter of June 1st 1674. [Sw.]