Hindu Achievements in Exact Science: A Study in the History of Scientific Development c22.3

c22.3

The discovery of the microscope in 1683 is the real beginning of the study of plant and animal anatomies and of the internal structure of minerals. The birth of modern chemistry in the work of Priestley and Lavoisier at the end of the eighteenth century started the physiology of plants and animals as well as the determination of the composition and constitution of minerals. In 1809 exact measurements of crystalline forms of many minerals were made. The perfection of the microscope in 1867 has given a great impetus to all these sciences during the last half-century.¹³