Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.15743

    Flesh fibres of a fish

    Date
    3 March 1682
    Creator
    Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632 - 1723, Dutch) , Naturalist
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p7a
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 148mm
    width (page): 186mm
    Subject
    Description
    In a letter by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek to Robert Hooke.

    Fig. 3: a flesh fibre of an eel
    Fig. 4: fibres in a cod fish, but on a different scale from the previous image.
    Transcription
    from Alle de Brieven Vol. 3, p. 400: "and als ik de fig. 4 na sijn groote grlijk mij die meest doorgaens te vooren quamen hadde geteikent, soo soude deselve meer dan 16. mael dicker moet sijn geweest, en in soo een vis-striemtgens daer ik ick geen kringen sag, en die ik oordeelde dat wat stijf in lengte door mij gesigt lagen gestreckt, asl hier eenigsints tusschen KL.
    Transcribed by the Making Visible project
    Object history
    'I made a drawing of it as best as I could (for I cannot draw)' (Alle de brieven van Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, ed. by a committee of Dutch scientists, 17 vols [ongoing] (Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger, 1939- ), III (1948), 382-415 (letter 67) (p. 395)).

    A. Leeuwenhoeck, ‘Curious discoveries about internal texture of the flesh of muscles, of strange motions in fins, and the manner of production of shells of oysters’, Philosophical Collections, 5 (1682), pp. 152-60.

    Journal de médecine (1683), 112-28. With four figures. (French translation of a copy of this letter, which was sent to Antoni Heinsius.)

    Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, Ontledingen en ontdekkingen (Leiden: C. Boutesteyn, 1686), pp. 16-29. With six figures.

    Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, Anatomia Seu interiora Rerum, Cum Animatarum tum Inanimatarum, Ope & beneficio [sic] exquisitissimorum Microscopiorum Detecta, variisque experimentis demonstrata [etc.] (Leiden: C. Boutesteyn, 1687), pp. 43-53.
    Related fellows
    Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632 - 1723, Dutch) , Naturalist
    Robert Hooke (1635 - 1703, British) , Natural philosopher
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > Netherlands
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