The syringe pipes

As Hooke notes, there are ‘very few that have not felt as well as seen’ the stinging nettle. But he wasn’t content simply to look at it under the scope, and see that it was ‘very thick set with turnpikes, or sharp needles’. No, Hooke decided to deliberately sting his own fingers while peering through the glass, thus discovering it wasn’t only the spike that caused the pain, but ‘certain little bags, bladders, or receptacles full of… the liquor of the plant, which was poisonous, and those small bodkins were but the syringe-pipes’.