Micrographia

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 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, it became the first scientific best-seller, inspiring a wide public interest in the new science of microscopy. The book originated the biological term cell. Hooke most famously describes a fly's eye and a plant cell (where he coined that term because plant cells, which are walled, reminded him of the cells in a honeycomb). Known for its spectacular copperplate of the miniature world, particularly its fold-out plates of insects, the text itself reinforces the tremendous power of the new microscope. The plates of insects fold out to be larger than the large folio itself, the engraving of the louse 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, the organic origin of fossils, and other philosophical and scientific interests of its author. Hooke also selected several objects of human origin; among these objects were urine crystals 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]], [[Maryland]]. File:Louse diagram, Micrographia, Robert Hooke, 1667.