2.5 Anatomical Observations on the Glands of the Eyes

Abstract

Some new matters which are here presented to you, my teachers, are not commended as new as if they were brought forward for the first time. They are old, even older than those Arcadians who boasted to have existed before the moon and thus older than the human kind since they were born with the beasts before man was created as the Scriptures testify. Nor do I proclaim them as new because I think they have never been observed before. Although there are as many and as different opinions on the origin and the paths of tears as there are rivers which run in the sea, they do not seem to demonstrate the subject.

OPH 5 vol. I, 77–90: “De glandulis oculorum novisqve earundem vasis observationes anatomicae” appeared as the third of the four treatises in Nicolai Stenonis observationes anatomicæ... Lugd. Batav. 1662. Further annotations by Vilhelm Maar are found in the transcripts, www.extras.springer.com.