''Micrographia: or Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses. With Observations and Inquiries Thereupon.'' is a historically significant book by
Robert Hooke
Robert Hooke FRS (; 18 July 16353 March 1703) was an English polymath active as a scientist, natural philosopher and architect, who is credited to be one of two scientists to discover microorganisms in 1665 using a compound microscope that ...
about his observations through various lenses. It was the first book to include illustrations of insects and plants as seen through microscopes.
Published in January 1665, the first major publication of the
Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
, it became the first scientific best-seller, inspiring a wide public interest in the new science of
microscopy
Microscopy is the technical field of using microscopes to view objects and areas of objects that cannot be seen with the naked eye (objects that are not within the resolution range of the normal eye). There are three well-known branches of micr ...
. The book originated the biological term ''
cell
Cell most often refers to:
* Cell (biology), the functional basic unit of life
Cell may also refer to:
Locations
* Monastic cell, a small room, hut, or cave in which a religious recluse lives, alternatively the small precursor of a monastery ...
''.
Observations
Hooke most famously describes a
fly
Flies are insects of the Order (biology), order Diptera, the name being derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek δι- ''di-'' "two", and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwing ...
's eye and a plant
cell
Cell most often refers to:
* Cell (biology), the functional basic unit of life
Cell may also refer to:
Locations
* Monastic cell, a small room, hut, or cave in which a religious recluse lives, alternatively the small precursor of a monastery ...
(where he coined that term because plant cells, which are walled, reminded him of the cells in a
honeycomb
A honeycomb is a mass of Triangular prismatic honeycomb#Hexagonal prismatic honeycomb, hexagonal prismatic Beeswax, wax cells built by honey bees in their beehive, nests to contain their larvae and stores of honey and pollen.
beekeeping, Beekee ...
["... I could exceedingly plainly perceive it to be all perforated and porous, much like a Honey-comb, but that the pores of it were not regular .these pores, or cells, .were indeed the first microscopical pores I ever saw, and perhaps, that were ever seen, for I had not met with any Writer or Person, that had made any mention of them before this. . ." – Hooke describing his observations on a thin slice of cork]
Robert Hooke
/ref>). Known for its spectacular copperplate of the miniature world, particularly its fold-out plates of insect
Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs ...
s, the text itself reinforces the tremendous power of the new microscope
A microscope () is a laboratory instrument used to examine objects that are too small to be seen by the naked eye. Microscopy is the science of investigating small objects and structures using a microscope. Microscopic means being invisibl ...
. The plates of insects fold out to be larger than the large folio
The term "folio" (), has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing: first, it is a term for a common method of arranging sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once, and a term for a book ma ...
itself, the engraving of the louse
Louse ( : lice) is the common name for any member of the clade Phthiraptera, which contains nearly 5,000 species of wingless parasitic insects. Phthiraptera has variously been recognized as an order, infraorder, or a parvorder, as a result o ...
in particular folding out to four times the size of the book. Although the book is best known for demonstrating the power of the microscope, ''Micrographia'' also describes distant planetary bodies, the wave theory of light
In physics, physical optics, or wave optics, is the branch of optics that studies Interference (wave propagation), interference, diffraction, Polarization (waves), polarization, and other phenomena for which the ray approximation of geometric opti ...
, the organic origin of fossil
A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...
s, and other philosophical and scientific interests of its author.
Hooke also selected several objects of human origin; among these objects were the jagged edge of a honed razor and the point of a needle, seeming blunt under the microscope. His goal may well have been to contrast the flawed products of mankind with the perfection of nature (and hence, in the spirit of the times, of biblical creation).
File:Hooke Microscope-03000276-FIG-4.jpg, Microscope manufactured by Christopher White of London for Robert Hooke. Hooke is believed to have used this microscope for the observations that formed the basis of ''Micrographia''. (M-030 00276) Courtesy - Billings Microscope Collection, National Museum of Health and Medicine
The National Museum of Health and Medicine (NMHM) is a museum in Silver Spring, Maryland, near Washington, DC. The museum was founded by U.S. Army Surgeon General William A. Hammond as the Army Medical Museum (AMM) in 1862; it became the NMHM in ...
, Maryland
Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...
.
File:Louse diagram, Micrographia, Robert Hooke, 1667.jpg, Hooke's drawing of a louse
Louse ( : lice) is the common name for any member of the clade Phthiraptera, which contains nearly 5,000 species of wingless parasitic insects. Phthiraptera has variously been recognized as an order, infraorder, or a parvorder, as a result o ...
File:HookeFlea01.jpg, Hooke's drawing of a flea
Flea, the common name for the order Siphonaptera, includes 2,500 species of small flightless insects that live as external parasites of mammals and birds. Fleas live by ingesting the blood of their hosts. Adult fleas grow to about long, a ...
File:Hooke-microscope.png, Hooke's microscope
File:RobertHookeMicrographia1665.jpg, Hooke was the first to apply the word "cell
Cell most often refers to:
* Cell (biology), the functional basic unit of life
Cell may also refer to:
Locations
* Monastic cell, a small room, hut, or cave in which a religious recluse lives, alternatively the small precursor of a monastery ...
" to biological objects: Cork
Cork or CORK may refer to:
Materials
* Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product
** Cork (plug), a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container
***Wine cork
Places Ireland
* Cork (city)
** Metropolitan Cork, also known as G ...
.
File:Hooke-gnat.jpg, Hooke's drawing of a gnat
A gnat () is any of many species of tiny flying insects in the dipterid suborder Nematocera, especially those in the families Mycetophilidae, Anisopodidae and Sciaridae. They can be both biting and non-biting. Most often they fly in large ...
File:Compoundeye.png, Hooke's drawing of a grey dronefly
''Eristalis'' is a large genus of hoverflies, family Syrphidae, in the order Diptera. Several species are known as drone flies (or droneflies) because they bear a resemblance to honeybee drones.
Drone flies and their relatives are fairly comm ...
File:Hooke-bluefly.jpg, Hooke's drawing of a blue fly
Reception
Published under the aegis of The Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, r ...
, the popularity of the book helped further the society's image and mission of being England's leading scientific organization. ''Micrographias illustrations of the miniature world captured the public's imagination in a radically new way; Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys (; 23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703) was an English diarist and naval administrator. He served as administrator of the Royal Navy and Member of Parliament and is most famous for the diary he kept for a decade. Pepys had no mariti ...
called it "the most ingenious book that ever I read in my life."
Methods
In 2007, Janice Neri, a professor of art history and visual culture, studied Hooke's artistic influences and processes with the help of some newly rediscovered notes and drawings that appear to show some of his work leading up to ''Micrographia.'' She observes, "Hooke's use of the term "schema" to identify his plates indicates that he approached his images in a diagram
A diagram is a symbolic representation of information using visualization techniques. Diagrams have been used since prehistoric times on walls of caves, but became more prevalent during the Enlightenment. Sometimes, the technique uses a three- ...
matic manner and implies the study or visual dissection
Dissection (from Latin ' "to cut to pieces"; also called anatomization) is the dismembering of the body of a deceased animal or plant to study its anatomical structure. Autopsy is used in pathology and forensic medicine to determine the cause o ...
of the objects portrayed." Identifying Hooke's schema as 'organization tools,' she emphasizes:
Additionally: "Hooke often enclosed the objects he presented within a round frame, thus offering viewers an evocation of the experience of looking through the lens of a microscope."
Bibliography
*Robert Hooke. ''Micrographia: or, Some physiological descriptions of minute bodies made by magnifying glasses''. London: J. Martyn and J. Allestry, 1665. (first edition).
References
External links
* Engraved copperplate illustrations from a first edition of
Micrographia : or, Some physiological descriptions of minute bodies made by magnifying glasses. With observations and inquiries thereupon
' (all images freely available for download in a variety of formats from the Science History Institute
The Science History Institute is an institution that preserves and promotes understanding of the history of science. Located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, it includes a library, museum, archive, research center and conference center.
It was fo ...
'
Digital Collections
Project Gutenberg ''Micrographia'' text
- virtual copy of the book from the National Library of Medicine
*
Micrographia
' - full digital facsimile at Linda Hall Library
Transcribing the Hooke Folio
*
*
{{History of biology
English non-fiction literature
Biology books
1665 books
Microscopes
Microscopy
Cell imaging
Royal Society
1665 in science