M0010758: Instrument for cutting thin transverse sections of wood for microscopical examination

Date:
September 1948
Reference:
WT/D/1/20/1/95/27
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: M0010758: Instrument for cutting thin transverse sections of wood for microscopical examination. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    aflonifhment, animals that multiply by flips and flioots like a plant, that may be grafted together as one tree to another, that may be turned in fide out like a glove, and yet live, aft, and per- form all the various funftions of their little fpheres. As nearly allied to thefe, the chapter finifhes with an account of thofe vor- ticellas which have been enumerated by Linnaeus. It has been my endeavour to diffipate confufion, by the introduftion of order, to difpofe into method, and fele£I under proper heads the fubflance of all that is known relative to thefe little creatures, and in the compafs of a few pages to give the reader the information that is dilperfed through volumes. From the hydrae and vorticellae it was natural to proceed to the animalcula which are to be found in vegetable infufions. Microfcopic beings, that feem as it were to border on the infinitely fmall, that leave no fpace defiitute of inhabitants, and are of greater importance in the immenfe fcale of beings than our con- trafted imagination can conceive, yet fmall as they are, each of them poffeffes all that beauty and proportion of organized texture which is neceffary to it’s well being, and fuited to the happinefs it is called forth to enjoy. I have pointed out the decided charafters which fix them in the fcale of animal life, eharafters that it is prefumed are a full confutation of the fanciful th >ries of Needham and Buffon. A fiiort account of three hundred and feventy-nme of thefe minute beings is then given, agreeable to the fyftem of the laborious Muller,* enlarging confiderably his def- cription of thofe animalcula that are moft eafily met with, better known, and confecpaently hnore interefling to the generality of readers.. The * Muller, Animalcula Infuforia.