Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.15745

    Shell of an oyster

    Date
    3 March 1682
    Creator
    Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632 - 1723, Dutch) , Naturalist
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p13a
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 158mm
    width (page): 202mm
    Subject
    Description
    Letter by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek to Robert Hooke.

    Fig. 6: the inside of a flat oyster shell.
    Fig. 7: 'Let us suppose that Fig. 7 is part of the circumference of the latest formed scale, and that the globules thrust out first at L on the circumfrence which coagulate at once when outside' (Alle de brieven, vol. 3, p. 415).
    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)). The image of the oyster was not copied into the published versions of this article, in contrast to Figure 7.

    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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