s to what the appearance
of it is to the naked eye, that it needs no description; and there are very
few that have not felt as well as seen it; and therefore it will be no news
to tell that a gentle and slight touch of the skin by a Nettle, does
oftentime, not onely create very sensible and acute pain, much like that of
a burn or scald, but often also very angry and hard swellings and
inflamations of the parts, such as will presently rise, and continue swoln
divers hours. These observations, I say, are common enough; but how the
pain is so suddenly created, and by what means continued, augmented for a
time, and afterwards diminish'd, and at length quite exstinguish'd, has
not, that I know, been explain'd by any.

And here we must have recourse to our _Microscope_, and that will, if
almost any part of the Plant be looked on, shew us the whole surface of it
very thick set with turn-Pikes, or sharp Needles, of the shape of those
represented in the 15. _Scheme_ and first _Figure_ by AB, which are visible
also to the naked eye; each of which consists of two parts very distinct
for shape, and differing also in quality from one another. For the part A,
is shaped very much like a round Bodkin, from B tapering till it end in a
very sharp point; it is of substance very hard and stiff, exceedingly
transparent and cleer, and, as I by many trials certainly found, is hollow
from top to bottom.

This I found by this Experiment, I had a very convenient _Microscope_ with
a single Glass which drew about half an Inch, this I had fastned into a
little frame, almost like a pair of Spectacles, which I placed before mine
eyes, and so holding the leaf of a Nettle at a convenient distance from my
eye, I did first, with the thrusting of several of these bristles into my
skin, perceive that presently after I had thrust them in I felt the burning
pain begin; next I observ'd in divers of them, that upon thrusting my
finger against their tops, the Bodkin (if I may so call it) did not in the
least bend, but I could perceive moving up and down within it a certain
liquor, which upon thrusting the Bodkin against its basis, or bagg B, I
could perceive to rise towards the top, and upon taking away my hand, I
could see it again subside, and shrink into the bagg; this I did very
often, and saw this _Phaenomenon_ as plain as I could ever see a parcel of
water ascend and descend in a pipe of Glass. But the basis underneath these
Bodkins on which they were fas