2. Malpighi’s Observational Methods and ViewsIn the observation of the developmental process of the chick, it was Malpighi who was able to completely rid himself of the scholastic tradition. Malpighi’s microscopic observa-tions of fertilized eggs are contained in two treatisesthat he submitted to the Royal Society of England, De Formatione Pulli in Ovo(On the Formation of the Chick in the Egg[Bologna, 1672]) and De Ovo Incubato Observationes Continens(Repeated and Additional Observations on the Incubated Egg [Bologna, 1672]).7These are thorough observational records of the de-velopmental processes of chicks within the egg; the many scholastic references that characterize other treatises of the same era are virtually absent. Malpighi’s embryologic research is therefore significant as an early exponent of basic research based on pure observation without drawing premature conclusions from assumed premises.For the purpose of these observations, Malpighi employed a microscope. Pioneers such as Harvey and others also utilized microscopes, but it is clear from Malpighi’s letters that among Italian anatomists of the time, microscopic anatomy was already firmly established. In his correspondence with Giovanni Alfonso Borelli (1608-79), Lorenzo Bellini (1643-1704), and Nicolaus Steno (1638-87), the topic of microscopic observation appears frequently.8In his writings, Malpighi enthusiastically promoted the application of microscopes in dissection. In Opera Posthuma(Malpighi1697), hewrote that twolooks through Galileo’s telescope hadrevealed more things than had been seen in millenniumsbefore, and the microscope hadbrought to light so many wonderful mechanisms and structures in animals that anatomy couldexpect to make great strides from its use.9Based upon his belief that “the human body is a synthesis of microscopic instruments whose structures and movements cannot be seen with normal vision,” Malpighi stressed the necessity of microscopic anatomy in the preface of his De Viscerum Structura (Structure of the Viscera,1666).10
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