Anatomy and Contemplation

drawn, as Fig. L, M shows, as well as another adult, dead, killed by me, so that it might be recognized more distinctly by the painter, as Fig. N, O exhibits, with the intention, partly that the smallness of the saline particles contained in the vinegar might be compared and perceived by thought with the size of the little eels (it must be held that the previously narrated figures and little eels were observed only with an ordinary microscope, and that I detected far more saline particles in the vinegar, which were in no way discovered by that ordinary microscope), and partly to refute the error residing in the minds of many men, who derive the acidity of vinegar from the sole sense of pricking of these little eels, which they are believed to impress upon our tongue with their sharp tail, which, however, is erroneous. For if we were to suppose this to be true, it would follow that many vinegars ought to be tasteless, since they are destitute of such little eels, and in the winter time, when the little eels die, all vinegar would be tasteless, as I have often already said before.

Furthermore, I have also undertaken to examine vinegar in which crab stones i.e., gastroliths, or "crab's eyes," historically used as an antacid had been dissolved, and this is because these are commonly said to absorb all the acidity of the vinegar, and I believed that, if this were true, it would be that the previously recounted sharp particles would necessarily have to accept other shapes, either larger or softer and more flexible, by which they would not be able to prick our tongue, nor impress upon it that movement which we call an acid flavor. I therefore took several new glasses, into which I put crab stones, previously crushed into only small fragments so that the sand of the pulverized stones would not hinder me, and I discovered that all the oblong little shapes mentioned before, ending in a point, which could be likened to the radioli small rays or bristles of weavers, had been changed and had taken on other shapes, the base of which was oblong-quadrangular, rising into a pyramid, as if we were looking at angular and polished diamonds, as No. 2, Fig. P shows.