Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.15793

    Tubes to inhale smoke and vapour

    Date
    14 February 1702
    Creator
    Unknown, Artist
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p13
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 222mm
    width (page): 175mm
    Subject
    Description
    Three figures in a letter by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek to the Royal Society.

    Fig. 1: a glass tube for the purpose of inhaling balsam to improve shortness of breath. DEF is where one breathes, AIK is open and can be used to insert a piece of cloth with the balsam.

    Fig. 2: an improvement on fig. 1 because the tube is now closed off by cork on both sides. On top (R) there is a small tube inserted through the cork into the tube, through which one breathes. The balsam is supposed to be put inside the tube, not higher than VO. Breathing through means that air will go out through Za.

    Fig. 3: an additional tube that can be used for the improvement of the tube in fig. 1.
    Object history
    The Journal Book mentions on 25 March 1702, 'The Translation of a Letter from Mr. Leeuwenhoeck was Read, concerning some experiments he lately made in order to cure the shortness of breath' (JBO/10/244).

    The letter and images are printed in:
    A. Leeuwenhoek, ‘Several microscopic observations and experiments concerning the animalcula in semine masculino of cocks, and spiders, shortness of breath’, Phil. Trans. vol. 23, no. 279 (May and June 1702), pp. 1137-51. Tab. 2, figs 1-3, glass tubes for observation.

    A. van Leeuwenhoek, Sevende vervolg der brieven (Delft: H. van Krooneveld, 1702), pp. 415-29.

    A. van Leeuwenhoek, Epistolae ad Societatem Regiam Anglicam (Leiden: J. A. Langerak, 1719), pp. 395-408.
    Related fellows
    Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632 - 1723, Dutch) , Naturalist
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > Netherlands
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