Antonie van Leeuwenhoek
Around the year 1590, two Dutch spectacle makers, Hans and Zaccharias Janssen were experimenting with glass lenses. They put several lenses in a tube and discovered that an object near the end of the tube could be viewed at much larger magnification than a simple magnifying glass could achieve. This was the invention of the microscope.
In 1648 while working for a cloth merchant in Amsterdam, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek saw his first simple microscope, which was only capable of magnifying a few times but was useful for counting the threads in cloth. He acquired a microscope for his own use and became so interested that he went on to learn how to make his own lenses.
During his lifetime van Leeuwenhoek ground more than 500 optical lenses and created over 400 microscopes, only nine of which still exist today. His microscopes consisted of silver or copper frames rather than a tube to hold the lenses. By grinding and polishing, he was able to make small lenses with large curvatures. These fat lenses produced greater magnifications, and his microscopes were eventually able to magnify up to 270 times. Van Leeuwenhoek never published his method of how to make these superb lenses.
Robert Hooke also spent much of his life working with microscopes and improved their design. In 1664 he published a book entitled Micrographia in which he described and illustrated small insects such as fleas, but which also contained the first description of plant cells. It is believed that van Leeuwenhoek read Hooke’s book in 1665 and that this stimulated him to use his microscopes for the purpose of investigating the natural world.
In 1674 van Leeuwenhoek discovered protists (which he called animalcules from the Latin for “little animal”) in lake water, and in 1676 was the first person to observe bacteria scraped from the film between his own teeth. In 1677 he also became the first person to observe spermatozoa. But van Leeuwenhoek’s work went far beyond merely observing micro-organisms. For example, in 1676 he described his methods of making infusion cultures of micro-organisms (so the next time anyone tries to tell you Louis Pasteur was the “Father of Microbiology”, remind them that van Leeuwenhoek got there 200 years earlier!).
Van Leeuwenhoek began to send of his microscopic observations to the Royal Society in England, and in 1676 he sent his first observations of microscopic single celled organisms. Such was the quality of his microscopes that other scientists were initially unable to repeat his observations, and his credibility was questioned. Eventually, in 1680, van Leeuwenhoek’s work was accepted by the Royal Society.
Van Leeuwenhoek has rightly become known as “the Father of Microbiology”, and the Federation of European Microbiology Societies (FEMS) has it’s headquarters in Delft, the birthplace of the science of microbiology.
Thonis Leeuwenhoek (16321723), was born and died in Delft in The Netherlands, and was known in his adult life as Antonie. He adopted “van” to precede his surname as a mark of social status in 1686.
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Tags: Bacteria, Biology, Microbiology, Science, Video
