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-
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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![A specimen of some Observations made by a Micros¬ cope, contrived by M. Leewenhoeck in Holland, lately communicated by Dr. Regnerus de Graaf. The person communicating these Observations, by and by to be delivered, mentions in a Letter of his, written from Delpht April. 28. 1673. that one Mr. Leewenhoeck hath lately contrived Micros¬ copes excelling those that have been hitherto made by Eustachio Divini and others; adding, that he hath given a specimen of their excellency by divers Observations, and is ready to receive difficult tasks for more, if the Curious here shall please to send him such: Which they are not like to be wanting in. The Observations themselves. 1. The Mould upon skin, flesh, or other things, hath been by Mould. some1) represented to be shott out in the form of the stalks of Vegetables, so as that some of those stalks appeared with round knobs at the end, some with blossom-like leaves. But I do observe such Mould to shoot up first with a straight transparent stalk, in which stalk is driven up a globous substance, which for the most part places it self at the top of the stalk, and is follow’d by another globul, driving out the first either side-ways, or at the top, and that is succeeded by a third and more such globuls; all which make up at last one great knob on the stalk, an hundred times thicker than the stalk it self. And this knob indeed consists of nothing else than of many small roundish knobs, which being multiplied, the big knob begins to burst asunder, and then represents a kind of Blossoms with Leaves2). 1) In all probability Leeuwenhoeck here calls in question Hooke’s m /. opinion, who pictures a “Mucor” (Micrographia (1665), p. 125, Scheme XII). Hooke (Obs. 20) saw the sporangia, but did not find seed in them. He writes: “What these heads contained I could not perceive; whether they were knobs and flowers, or seed cases, I am not able to say .” [S.; W.] 2) There is every reason to conclude that this is the first observation ill■ 2. concerning the formation of spores in moulds. Although the description is not quite correct, there can be no doubt that L. here observed the formation of a sporangium and the liberation of the sporangiospores in one of the species of moulds belonging to the Mucor aceae. [K.]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b31364962_0001_0037.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
