Simple air pump, Samuel van Musschenbroek, Leiden, 1675, From the Leiden Cabinet of Physics
Inv V09633

During his lectures the Leiden professor Burchard de Volder gave demonstrations with this air pump. He wanted to show how all kinds of things reacted to a vacuum. For example, he put jingling bells, plants and finally even a live dog in his pump. According to a preserved report, De Volder reassured his students, he had done the experiment many times and if he re-opened the air supply in time, the dog would come to no harm. But precisely on that occasion the professor was too late, and the dog died. That was a shame, but it demonstrated nicely that a dog cannot survive in a vacuum. And that was the point of it all: to investigate the properties of air and vacuum.