The Microscope in the Dutch Republic: The Shaping of Discovery

Przednia okładka
Cambridge University Press, 1996 - 348
Emphasizing the work of Jan Swammerdam and Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, The Microscope in the Dutch Republic dissects the social, cultural, and emotional circumstances that shaped early microscopic discovery. Arguing that the aspects of seventeenth-century Dutch culture widely assumed to have favored the lens actually impeded its serious use, Ruestow focuses on social contexts and on Swammerdam and Leeuwenhoek's social sensibilities as the key source of their commitment to the new instrument. He also analyzes how they drew upon their cultural background to vest microscopic images with meaning, though with strikingly different emphases. Having underscored how their influential contributions to the debates over generation also illustrated the problematic role of early microscopic observations, Ruestow concludes with reflections on the eighteenth-century decline and the nineteenth-century resurgence of microscopic research and the impact of institutionalization.

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Spis treści

Of Light Lenses and Glass Beads
6
Seeming Invitations
37
Obstacles
61
Discovery Preempted
81
Swammerdam
105
Leeuwenhoek I A Clever Burgher
146
Leeuwenhoek II Images and Ideas
175
Generation I Turning against a Tradition
201
Generation II The Search for First Beginnings
223
A New World
260
Conclusion
280
References
305
Index
339
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Popularne fragmenty

Strona 319 - Traite de la Structure du Coeur, de son Action, et de ses Maladies (Paris, 1749, 2nd ed., 1777), vols.
Strona 1 - I send herewith unto his Majesty the strangest piece of news (as I may justly call it) that he hath ever yet received from any part of the world...
Strona 2 - ... twixt the greatest and smallest Bodies in Nature, which two Extremes lye equally beyond the reach of human sensation.
Strona 1 - Me thinkes my diligent Galileus hath done more in his three fold discoverie than Magellane in openinge the streightes to the South sea or the dutch men that were eaten by beares in Nova Zembla. I am sure with more ease and saftie to him selfe and more pleasure to mee.

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