The Collected Letters of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek

Abstract

THE third volume of this stupendous work include letters 43-69 (old enumeration 28-36), and cover the period April 1679-July 1682. Seven of the letters, however, are those which have either not been recovered or have no scientific value, but which are properly catalogued in order to maintain the completeness of the record. It is of interest to note, but withal disappointing, that the new material now brought to light is of no great importance, and hence the letters already wholly or partly published in various quarters have so far not proved to be seriously deficient. Perhaps the most significant point to be established in the present volume is the date when Leeuwenhoek first discovered the nucleus of the animal cell. In the printed Dutch and Latin versions of letter 67 (35) it was doubtful whether he had seen the nucleus of the oval red corpuscles of fishes ; but the original drawing now photographically reproduced for the first time shows clearly that he had seen the nucleus of the fish red corpuscle in March 1682. His next reference to the nucleus, this time in squamous epithelium, was in 1686. The etched figures in the Dutch and Latin "Opera"do not show the nucleus.

The Collected Letters of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek

Edited, illustrated and annotated by a Committee of Dutch Scientists. Vol 3: 1679–1682. Pp. viii+565+48 plates. (Amsterdam : Swets and Zeitlinger, Ltd., 1948.) n.p.