XXXIX. I divided each testicle of both cows into four parts, and, having put them into separate phials, I poured as much water on as would cover them, and after having closely corked them up, I suffered to infuse for six days; I then examined these infusions, and discovered an innumerable quantity of living moving bodies ([fig. 12.]); they were all, in these infusions, extremely small, moved with a surprising rapidity in all directions. I observed them for three days, and they always appeared to diminish, till at last, on the third day, they entirely disappeared.
XL. The following day they brought to me the genital parts of three more cows. I immediately searched the testicles to find one where the glandular substance was in perfect maturity; but in two of them I only discovered some growing glandular substances on the testicles. I could not learn whether these cows had calved or not, but there was a great appearance they had all been in season, for there were a great number of cicatrices on all these testicles. In the third I found a testicle, on which was a glandular substance, as thick and as red as a cherry; it was inflamed, and seemed to be in full maturity. Its extremity was a nipple, with a small hole; I pressed it a little between my fingers, and a quantity of liquor issued out. I found in this liquor moving globules, exactly like those in the liquor pressed from the glandular body of the other cow, I have before spoken of in experiment [XXXVI]. They appeared to be more numerous, their progressive motions were not so slow, and their size larger. Having observed them for some time I perceived some to lengthen and change their form. I then introduced a very fine instrument into the little hole of the glandular substance, and having opened it I found the internal cavity replete with liquor; this liquor offered me the same phenomena, and the same moving globules, as I before observed in experiment [XXXVI]. with either filaments, threads, or tails attached to them. The liquor of the vesicle presented me with nothing more than nearly a transparent matter, which did not contain one moving thing.
XLI. At different times they brought me the genitals of several other cows. In some I found the testicles loaded with an almost mature glandular substance; in others they were of different growths, and I remarked nothing new, excepting that in the two testicles of two different cows I perceived the glandular substance in a decayed state; the base of one was as broad as the circumference of a cherry; the extremity of the nipple was soft, wrinkled, and shrivelled; the two small holes were very perceptible, from whence the liquor had flowed. With some difficulty I introduced a small hair, but there was no liquor in the canal, nor in the internal cavity, which was still to be seen. The flaccidity of these glandular substances begins, therefore, at the most external part, or extremity of the nipple. They diminish at first in height, and afterwards in breadth, as I observed in another testicle, where this glandular substance had diminished more than three fourths.
XLII. As the testicles of doe rabbits, as well as the glandular bodies formed there, are very small, I could observe nothing very exactly with respect to their seminal liquor. I only discovered, that the testicles of doe rabbits are different, and that none of those I saw resembled what De Graaf represents in his engravings; for the glandular substances did not enclose the lymphatic vesicles; and I never saw a pointed end, as he has depicted them.
XLIII. I found on the testicles of some cows a kind of bladders, replete with transparent liquor. I remarked they were of different sizes, the largest about that of a pea; they were fastened to the external membrane of the testicle by a strong membraneous pedicle, as was also another, still smaller; and a third, nearly of the same size as the second, appeared to be only a lymphatic vesicle, much more apparent than the rest. I imagined these bladders, which the anatomists have called hydatides, might possibly be of the same nature as the lymphatic vesicles of the testicles, for having examined the liquor they contained I found it to be perfectly similar; it was a transparent and homogeneous liquor, which did not contain one moving substance.
XLIV. At the same time I made observations on the liquor in an oyster; on the water in which pepper had been boiled; on the water wherein pepper had been only infused; and on the water wherein I had put some vegetable seed; the bottles which contained these waters were firmly closed, and in two days I perceived in the oyster liquor a great quantity of oval and globular substances, which seemed to swim like fish in a pond, and had all the appearance of being animals; however they had no limbs nor tails, but were very large, transparent, and visible. I perceived them change their forms, and become smaller for seven or eight days successively; and at length I and Mr. Needham observed animals similar to those in an infusion of jelly of roast veal, which had been also very exactly corked; so that I am persuaded they are not real animals, at least according to the received acceptation of the words, as we shall hereafter explain.
The infusion of the seed presented an innumerable multitude of moving globules which appeared animated like those of the seminal liquors, and in the infusions of the flesh of animals: these were also large, and in violent motion during the first days, but they diminished by degrees, and disappeared only from their minuteness.
I perceived the same thing, but later, in the liquor wherein pepper had been boiled, and the like, though still later, in that which had not boiled; from hence I supposed that what is called fermentation may possibly be only the effect of the motion of these organical parts of animals and vegetables; and in order to see what difference there was between this kind of fermentation and that of minerals, I placed a little powdered stone on the microscope, and sprinkled thereon a drop of aquafortis, which however produced a different phenomena, consisting of great balls, which ascended to the surface, and almost instantaneously obscured the focus of the microscope: this was a dissolution of the grosser parts, which being completed it became motionless, and had not the smallest resemblance to the other infusions I had observed.
XLV. I examined the seminal liquor in the roes of different fish; such as carp, tench, barbel, &c. which I took out while they were living, and having observed three different liquors with great attention, I perceived a great quantity of obscure globules, all in motion. I took several more of these fish alive, and with my fingers gently compressed that part of the belly where this liquor is emitted; and in that which I obtained, I perceived an infinity of moving globules therein, very black and very small.