Pictures of robert hookes book he wrote

Among the library’s botanical riches, there are a few items which are not wholly botanical in nature. One of these is Robert Hooke’s groundbreaking work Micrographia, the first book in English to be devoted to microscopy. Although some plant specimens are featured, the work is renowned for its exquisite drawings of insects under magnification. As such, it was the first book to properly visually communicate the natural world.

Hooke was a 'renaissance man', adept at several branches of science. He was the originator of the iris diaphragm in cameras, the balance wheel in watches and the universal joint, later widely used in machines. A Fellow of the Royal Society, Hooke was at odds with Isaac Newton over gravitation. He considered that he had discovered the Inverse Square Law and that 'gravity did actually Decrease at a height from the Center', though Newton did not acknowledge this. Following the Great Fire of , Hooke was appointed City of London surveyor and designed numerous buildings, the most well known being Bedlam Hospital (now demolished).

This text is the first time that the word 'cell' had been used in a biological context. However A. Rupert Hall, in his lecture in to commemorate the th anniversary of the publication, considers that Hooke used the term in a descriptive way rather than in its modern sense. Indeed, Hall says, he actually depicts cell walls in his figure of the nettle leaf but does not recognise them.

Hooke’s writing on the nettle is an example of his closely-observed scientific description:

"those small Bodkins were but the Syringe-pipes, or Glyster-pipes, which first made way into the skin, and then served to convey that poisonous juice, upon the pressing of those little bags, into the interior and sensible parts of the skin, which being so discharg’d, does corrode, or, as it were, burn that part of the skin it touches" - Robert Hooke.

The two dark lengths depicted under the nettle are unfurled beard

Image. Title page of Robert Hooke, Micrographia: or, Some physiological descriptions of minute bodies made by magnifying glasses. London: J. Martyn and J. Allestry, Source: National Library of Wales via Wikimedia (public domain).

Commentary. The famous diarist Samuel Pepys called it "the most ingenious book that I ever read in my life." The Micrographia was a book intended to showcase the unheard-of powers of the microscope, and to enhance the prestige of the newly established Royal Society. It featured high-impact engravings of objects that had never been seen before in so much detail (such as a fly's eye or a flea) or with the naked eye (e.g. the cellular structure of a cork).  

This book, the Micrographia, was the first important work on microscopy, the study of minute objects through a microscope. First published in , it contains large-scale, finely detailed illustrations of some of the specimens Hooke viewed under the microscopes he designed. At the end of the book, there are observations of the stars and moon as seen through a telescope. By changing our perspective, Hooke gives power and beauty to things that might otherwise be dismissed as disgusting or trivial – the surface of frozen urine, the eye of a grey drone-fly, a piece of moss, the body of a louse, an ant or a flea. Alongside the engravings, he writes entertaining accounts of his observations. Hooke is witty and even poetic, using similes to help us imagine the world he sees through his lenses.

Commentary derived from 'Micrographia by Robert Hooke, ', British Library Online, accessed 9/11/ 

Resources 

High resolution images of many of the engravings in this book are available from the National Library of Wales.

A high-resolution facsimile of the entire book is available at 

Will Poole gives a lively introduction to the Bodleian's copy of this book in the video embedded below.

I here present to the World my imperfect Indeavours; which […] may be in some measure useful to the main Design of a reformation in Philosophy, if it be only by shewing, that there it not so much requir&#;d towards it, any strength of Imagination, or exactness of Method, or depth of Contemplation […] as a sincere Hand, and a faithful Eye, to examine, and to record, the things themselves as they appear.

Robert Hooke published Micrographia, his most famous work, in early , while the Curator at the Royal Society. In it, he describes various man-made and natural objects as seen through a microscope. The picture of the flea shown above is one of his best-known images. The original is a gigantic 18 inches across.

Helpfully for readers who had a microscope of their own, Hooke described how he prepared objects for study. The badly behaved ant, for example kept running off the microscopic plate until he knocked it out by leaving it in brandy for an hour.

The microscope had been invented around , before Hooke was born, but its potential had never been so thoroughly exploited. Hooke&#;s was a compound microscope, which used a second lens to magnify the image of the first to achieve a higher level of magnification than previous models, which had only one lens and which had been rather like a very powerful magnifying glass.  You may find more details on how his microscope worked here. The compound microscope is still the most commonly used type of microscope today in schools and scientific laboratories.

Visual images are now a ubiquitous method of scientific communication, but this tradition of visual communication in science began with Micrographia. It can be difficult for modern readers to understand the shock of the publication for its first audience. Familiar objects such as nettle leaves, needles and lice were transformed into extraordinary objects by the gorgeous engravings that were based on Hooke&#;s own drawings. His vivid prose was also easier to underst

A New Perspective

For the first time ever, it was possible to see the joints in an insect’s leg, the cells in a piece of cork, the unique structures of snowflakes, and more. The Micrographia revealed a whole new world to readers and offered a new perspective on familiar objects.

Hooke’s Christian beliefs shaped the perspective he offered to viewers. In Christian creation mythology, God gave the first two humans many abilities, but he took these abilities away when the humans broke one of God’s rules. These abilities included heightened senses. Hooke believed that, prior to being punished by God, humans were able to see, hear, touch, smell, and taste everything in the world. The microscope allowed humans to regain some of these sensory abilities and to increase their understanding of the natural and perfect design of God’s world.

In the Micrographia, Hooke argues that all human-made objects are imperfect, and that all natural objects and creatures are perfect and beautiful. The first section of the book uses illustration and writing to describe the appearance of common human-made objects when viewed under a microscope. While looking at these objects, Hooke identified inconsistencies so small they are not visible to the human eye without magnification. He followed his exploration of human-made objects with writings and illustrations of objects and creatures from nature. Hooke especially emphasized the beauty and perfection of natural features that are often considered ugly or gross such as frozen urine, fly eyes, moss, lice, ants, and fleas. He created many of these nature-based illustrations as fold-outs so they could be much larger than the book and capture and convey as many beautiful details as possible. Through his illustrations, Hooke offered readers a new way of seeing both the natural and human-made world.

Use the prompts below to look closely at Hooke’s illustration of human-made fabrics and Hooke’s illustration of the flea, a com