Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 58.djvu/581

on, and brought the controversy to a close soon after the son had consented to yield to his wishes.

Boerhaave, his fellow-countryman, gathered his complete writings after his death and published them in 1737 under the title 'Biblia Naturæ.' This is preceded by a life of Swammerdam, in which a graphic account is given of his phenomenal industry, his intense application, his methods and instruments. Most of the following passages are selected from that work.

He was a very intemperate worker, and in finishing his treatise on bees (1673) he broke himself down.

"It was an undertaking too great for the strongest constitution to be continually employed by day in making observations and almost as constantly engaged by night in recording them by drawings and suitable explanations. This being summer work, his daily labors began at 6 in the morning, when the sun afforded him light enough to enable him to survey such minute objects; and from that time till 12 he continued without interruption, all the while exposed in the open air to the scorching heat of the sun, bareheaded, for fear of interrupting the light, and his head in a manner dissolving into sweat under the irresistible ardors of that powerful luminary. And if he desisted at noon it was only because the strength of his eyes was too much weakened by the extraordinary efflux of light and the use of microscopes to continue any longer upon such small objects.

"This fatigue our author submitted to for a whole month together, without any interruption, merely to examine, describe and represent the intestines of bees, besides many months more bestowed upon the other parts; during which time he spent whole days in making observations, as long as there was sufficient light to make any, and whole nights in registering his observations, till at last he brought his treatise on bees to the wished-for perfection.

"For dissecting very minute objects, he had a brass table made on purpose by that ingenious artist, Samuel Musschenbroek. To this table were fastened two brass arms, movable at pleasure to any part of it, and the upper portion of these arms was likewise so contrived as to be susceptible of a very slow vertical motion, by which means the operator could readily alter their height as he saw most convenient to his purpose. The office of one of these arms was to hold the little corpuscles, and that of the other to apply the microscope. His microscopes were of various sizes and curvatures, his microscopical glasses being of various diameters and focuses, and from the least to the greatest, the best that could be procured, in regard to the exactness of the workmanship and the transparency of the substance.

"But the constructing of very fine scissors, and giving them an extreme sharpness, seems to have been his chief secret. These he made use of to cut very minute objects, because they dissected them equably, whereas knives and lancets, let them be ever so fine and sharp, are apt to disorder delicate substances. His knives, lancets and styles were so fine that he could not see to sharpen them without the assistance of the microscope; but with them he could dissect the intestines of bees