EARLY ENGRAVINGS OF MICROSCOPIC LIFE. Dissertation sur la generation, les animalcules spermatiques, et ceux d'infusions, avec des observations microscopiques sur le sperme, et wur les differrentes infusions, ouvrage traduit de l'allemand, orne de trente-quatre planches, dont plusieurs enluminees. [Dissertation on generation, spermatic animalcules, and those of infusions, with microscopic observations on sperm, and on the different infusions, work translated from German, adorned with thirty-four plates, several of which are colored]. by Gleichen-Russworm, Wilhelm Friedrich von - 1799

Paris, 1799.

1799 THE DAWN OF MICROSCOPY IN THE ENLIGHTENMENT ILLUSTRATED WITH FINE COPPER PLATE ENGRAVINGS.

11 3/4 inches tall hardcover, recent marbled paper covers, gilt leather title to spine, new endpapers, bookplate of Robert L Chevalier MD to front paste-down, [4], 238 pages, [34] leaves of plates: 1 unnumbered plate facing page 41, then numbered I-XXIII, XXIIIb, XXIV-XXXII (including 9 folded and 4 with partial coloring). Minimal foxing to half title page, the remainder of text and all plates crisp, bright, unmarked. Near fine.

Wilhelm Friedrich von GLEICHEN-RUSSWURM (1717-1783), was a German biologist. "In 1778 Gleichen-Russworm made his most important contribution to science. In. Abhandlung iiber die Saamen- und Infusionsthierchen he described the technique of phagocytic staining, which he had developed from earlier reports of the use of dyes as coloring agents for plant and animal tissues. In order to study the nutrition of a colony of ciliates, he added water colored with carmine and observed the subsequent staining of the food vacuoles, of which he provided an illustration. This technique did not become generally known until described by a number nineteenth-century biologists, notably Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg, Theodor Hartig, and Joseph von Gerlach."--Dict Sci Biog Vol. 5 pp 424-5. (GARRISON-MORTON No. 2465). The French translation offered here includes microscopic descriptions of semen from a variety of species including human, dog, donkey, horse, mule, bull, goat, frog, and rooster. In addition, experiments were performed in water containing grains (wheat, barley, peas, or hemp) and examined microscopically for motile organisms after incubation for varying number of days. Additional studies were done using filtered rain water in closed or open vessels containing added water from a fountain or well, or mixtures of meat or frog eggs and water. In addition to motile living microscopic organisms, crystals were also observed and pictured in the plates. The author attributes passions to animalcules, such as love and anger, since they mate and devour each other.