Wrote letter of 1723-05-31 (AB 373) to members of the Royal Society about the structure and texture of the diaphragm, the source of his most severe ailment
Standard reference information Leeuwenhoek's summary Leeuwenhoek did not publish any letters after 1718 in book form with his own summaries. The summary below comes from Alle de Brieven / Collected Letters .
In this letter, L. discusses his microscopical observations on the structure and texture of the diaphragm, the source of his most severe ailment.
Reception in London No Dutch manuscript known. The signed manuscript of the Latin translation is to be found in London, Royal Society, Early Letters L.4.85; 12 quarto pages, 1 engraving.
The letter was published in Philosophical Transactions in Latin, so no contemporary English translation was made.
The letter was read during the 3 June and 20 June 1723 meetings of the Royal Society; Royal Society, Journal Book, vol. 13, pp. 297, 300; Letter Book Original, 15.82, 11 pp.
Figures This is Leeuwenhoek’s last letter with with figures. The original drawings are lost. The 7 figures used here come from Philosophical Transactions . The letter came with seven figures on a single engraving. Figures 1-7 can be found as Figs. II-VIII on the plate with No. 379 of the Philosophical Transactions .
On the manuscript, someone crossed out L.’s figure numbers 1 through 7 and replaced them (in all cases except one) with numbers 2 through 8 in order to match the figure numbers on the plate. To reduce confusion, those numbers have been retained in the translation.
Notes The letter was sent to the Royal Society in Latin translation, probably by JOHANNES HOOGVLIET, signed by Leeuwenhoek. This letter was followed by two letters sent posthusmously in August 1723. Neither of them was signed by Leeuwenhoek, so the signature at the end of the present letter is his last known.
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