Micrographia: Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses with Observations and Inquiries ThereuponHooke, Robert
History
Micrographia: Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses with Observations and Inquiries Thereupon
Hooke, Robert
Magnifying glasses -- Early works to 1800; Microscopy -- Early works to 1800; Natural history -- Pre-Linnean works
nose very deep into the skin, nor to open any kind of mouth, but I could
plainly perceive a small current of blood, which came directly from its
snout, and past into its belly; and about A there seem’d a contrivance,
somewhat resembling a Pump, pair of Bellows, or Heart, for by a very swift
_systole_ and _diastole_ the blood seem’d drawn from the nose, and forced
into the body. It did not seem at all, though I viewed it a good while as
it was sucking, to thrust more of its nose into the skin then the very
snout D, nor did it cause the least discernable pain, and yet the blood
seem’d to run through its head very quick and freely, so that it seems
there is no part of the skin but the blood is dispers’d into, nay, even
into the _cuticula_; for had it thrust its whole nose in from D to CC, it
would not have amounted to the supposed thickness of that _tegument_, the
length of the nose being not more then a three hundredth part of an inch.
It has six legs, covered with a very transparent shell, and joynted exactly
like a Crab’s, or Lobster’s; each leg is divided into six parts by these
joynts, and those have here and there several small hairs; and at the end
of each leg it has two claws, very properly adapted for its peculiar use,
being thereby inabled to walk very securely both on the skin and hair; and
indeed this contrivance of the feet is very curious, and could not be made
more commodiously and compendiously, for performing both these requisite
motions, of walking and climbing up the hair of a mans head, then it is:
for, by having the lesser claw (a) set so much short of the bigger (b) when
it walks on the skin the shorter touches not, and then the feet are the
same with those of a Mite, and several other small Insects, but by means of
the small joynts of the longer claw it can bend it round, and so with both
claws take hold of a hair, in the manner represented in the Figure, the
long transparent Cylinder FFF, being a Man’s hair held by it.
The _Thorax_ seem’d cas’d with another kind of substance then the belly,
namely, with a thin transparent horny substance, which upon the fasting of
the Creature did not grow flaccid; through this I could plainly see the
blood, suck’d from my hand, to be variously distributed, and mov’d to and
fro; and about G there seem’d a pretty big white substance, which seem’d to
be moved within its _thorax_; besides, there appear’d very many small
milk-white vessels, which crost over the breast between the legs, out of
which, on either side, were many small branchings, these seem’d to be the
veins and arteries, for that which is analogus to blood in all Insects is
milk-white.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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