THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.

...the bodies, using the freedom gained for that purpose in the hospital.
At that time, the best opportunity for his goal was in Amsterdam, because the most learned physicians there formed a society to meet together every other week to hold discussions and to conduct experiments, especially on medical and anatomical subjects. The observations made there were printed after that time by Caspar Commelin, in the years 1666 and 1667, before Mr. Swammerdam had yet been made a Doctor of Medicine. Nevertheless, he contributed the primary material for the composition of this little work. Our author alone drew the figure of the spinal cord, which Blasius presents there, in that same assembly. He wrote about this to Mr. Thevenot on April 1, 1666, that he had found it thus: 1. that the whole spinal cord consisted of individual fibers; 2. that those fibers, distinct from one another, came together and ended in a certain part of the brain; 3. that the nerves also sprouted fiber-like from the fibers of the spinal cord; 4. that the thin membranes of the brain spread out entirely into hollow sheaths; 5. that the spinal cord, while still warm, together with the vertebrae in which it is contained, must be placed most quickly into cold water and left in it for 24 hours; after which the vertebrae must be broken open cautiously; then all this can be seen. He himself attempted many things by injecting various fluids into the veins of living animals. See his work on Respiration, pp. 103, 107. Also concerning chemistry, regarding the cold ebullition caused by mixing salt of urine with the spirit of salt of Glauber. Ibid., p. 111. He then described his treatment, so thorough, on Respiration, in order to defend it, so that he might legally become a Doctor of Medicine. The reading of it shows that he followed only his own thoughts, born of experience, and strengthened on all sides by that experience, without mixing in anything that had been stolen from other inventors. Having finished this, he returned to Leiden at the end of the year 1666 to legally become a Doctor. And it was on that occasion that he formed the closest friendship with his old teacher of anatomy, the most famous Mr. Jan van Horne. With him, he now practiced the art and prepared many things in many ways. They openly shared all their ideas and inventions. The professor provided everything necessary with all generosity. The other performed the work and drew all the inventions with his own hands, with the utmost art, and immediately sent all the completed drawings to Mattheus Sladus, adding his own observations to them. What was missing here? The materials, the tools, costs, and space were provided in abundance by the generosity of Mr. Van Horne; on the other side was the diligence, the sharp-sightedness, and the practiced hand of Mr. Swammerdam, night and day at work. It was here, in Van Horne's house, on January 21, 1667, that he first filled the vessels of a woman's uterus with wax, through a very useful undertaking, which he has since improved more and more. He was then made a Doctor on February 22 of the same year, after he had publicly defended his thesis on Respiration. At that time, he had that alone...