Fig. 20a.—Leeuwenhoek's Mechanism for Examining the Circulation of the Blood.
His Scientific Letters.—His microscopic observations were described and sent to learned societies in the form of letters. "All or nearly all that he did in a literary way was after the manner of an epistle," and his written communications were so numerous as to justify the cognomen, "The man of many letters." "The French Academy of Sciences, of which he was elected a corresponding member in 1697, got twenty-seven; but the lion's share fell to the young Royal Society of London, which in fifty years—1673-1723—received 375 letters and papers." "The works themselves, except that they lie in the domain of natural history, are disconnected and appear in no order of systematized study. The philosopher was led by what transpired at any moment to lead him."
Fig. 20b.—The Capillary Circulation. (After Leeuwenhoek.)
The Capillary Circulation.—In 1686 he observed the minute circulation of the blood, and demonstrated the capillary connection between arteries and veins, thus forging the final link in the chain of observation showing the relation between these blood-vessels. This was perhaps his most important observation for its bearing on physiology. It must be remembered that Harvey had not actually seen the circulation of the blood, which he announced in 1628. He assumed on entirely sufficient grounds the existence of a complete circulation, but there was wanting in his scheme the direct ocular proof of the passage of blood from arteries to veins. This was supplied by Leeuwenhoek. Fig. 20b shows one of his sketches of the capillary circulation. In his efforts to see the circulation he tried various animals; the comb of the young cock, the ears of white rabbits, the membraneous wing of the bat were progressively examined. The next advance came when he directed his microscope to the tail of the tadpole. Upon examining this he exclaims:
"A sight presented itself more delightful than any mine eyes had ever beheld; for here I discovered more than fifty circulations of the blood in different places, while the animal lay quiet in the water, and I could bring it before my microscope to my wish. For I saw not only that in many places the blood was conveyed through exceedingly minute vessels, from the middle of the tail toward the edges, but that each of the vessels had a curve or turning, and carried the blood back toward the middle of the tail, in order to be again conveyed to the heart. Hereby it plainly appeared to me that the blood-vessels which I now saw in the animal, and which bear the names of arteries and veins are, in fact, one and the same; that is to say, that they are properly termed arteries so long as they convey the blood to the furtherest extremities of its vessels, and veins when they bring it back to the heart. And thus it appears that an artery and a vein are one and the same vessel prolonged or extended."
This description shows that he fully appreciated the course of the minute vascular circulation and the nature of the communication between arteries and veins. He afterward extended his observations to the web of the frog's foot, the tail of young fishes and eels.
In connection with this it should be remembered that Malpighi, in 1661, observed the flow of blood in the lungs and in the mesentery of the frog, but he made little of the discovery. Leeuwenhoek did more with his, and gave the first clear idea of the capillary circulation. Leeuwenhoek was anticipated also by Malpighi in reference to the microscopic structure of the blood. (See also under Swammerdam.) To Malpighi the corpuscles appeared to be globules of fat, while Leeuwenhoek noted that the blood disks of birds, frogs, and fishes were oval in outline, and those of mammals circular. He reserved the term 'globule' for those of the human body, erroneously believing them to be spheroidal.