Page:The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800.djvu/405

 Leeuwenhoek nevertheless manifested certain mean traits of character. Daremberg says that these "consisted in his disposition to conceal his technical methods from his associates, and in his jealousy of others—as manifested, for example, toward Leibnitz, who had established a similar laboratory for research work in minute anatomy. These traits of character showed that fundamentally he was not a true lover of science, but rather an artisan. And yet, with all these faults, he does not appear to have placed an inordinately high value upon his discoveries or to have been unreasonably sure of the correctness of his conclusions." The first monograph published by Leeuwenhoek bears the date 1673. It is a study of the minute anatomy of the bee's sting. He was the first to declare that the blood is the nutritive fluid par excellence, and that it is to be found in the entire series of organisms belonging to the animal kingdom. He divided blood into two parts—the red, or the solid portion, and the serum. The corpuscles which float in the serum and give to the whole fluid its red color, are called by him "particles," in the case of blood from birds, reptiles and fishes, and "globules" in that from quadrupeds. He employed this term "globules" because he believed that these bodies were exactly spherical in shape. According to Daremberg, Leeuwenhoek's studies cover the entire field of human histology, and his findings are for the most part correct.

The Founding of Organizations for the Advancement of Medical Science.—During the seventeenth century there were formed a number of associations which had for their object the promotion of scientific knowledge, and these organizations contributed greatly to stimulate original researches in anatomy and physiology and to secure accuracy in the published results. Perhaps the most important institution of this kind was the French ''Académie des sciences'', which was founded in 1666, and which deserves the credit of having taken a very important part in the perfecting of our knowledge of anatomy and physiology. The Royal Society of London, founded in 1645, possesses a splendid record of valuable work accomplished. The