Head louse Martin Frobene Ledermuller

Study of a head louse, viewed by microscope under magnification, with a view of the insect at actual size, and other details.

Plate 21 from Amusement microscopique, tant pour l'esprit que pour les yeux, contenant... estampes... d'apres nature...by Martin Frobene Ledermuller, plates volume (Adam Wolfgang Winterschmidt, Nuremburg, 1764).

Inscribed above: ‘TAB.XXI.’ Inscribed below: M.F.L. del. A.W.W. ex:’

The accompanying text is headed: ‘Table XXI. D’un Pou de Tete.’ The author comments that: ‘Voici encore une petite Créature, qui a été tante décrite par de si célébres Naturalistes, que je n’ai qu’ à renvoier mes Lecteurs aux Ouvrages de Hoocke, de Bonani, de Redi, de Kircher, de Frisch & sur-tout à la Bible de la Nature de Schvvammerdam, ou cet insect & anatomisé de la Manière la plus exacte & la plus artificielle’. [Here is another little creature, which has already been described by such famous naturalists, that I only have to refer my readers to the works of Hooke, Bonani, Redi, Kircher, Frisch & above all Swammerdam's Bible of Nature, for this insect & anatomized in the most exact & the most artificial way].

Martin Frobene [Frobenius] Ledermuller (1719-1769) German naturalist was employed in various capacities as a notary, turning to microscope studies after an illness induced temporary deafness.