Biography of Antonie van

Leeuwenhoek, Father of
Microbiology
The Dutch scientist invented the first practical
microscope

Bettmann / Getty Images

Anton van Leeuwenhoek (October 24, 1632–August 30, 1723) invented

the first practical microscopes and used them to become the first
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 person to see and describe bacteria, among other microscopic
discoveries. Indeed, van Leeuwenhoek's work effectively refuted the
doctrine of spontaneous generation, the theory that living organisms
could spontaneously emerge from nonliving matter. His studies also led
to the development of the sciences of bacteriology and protozoology.

Fast Facts: Anton van Leeuwenhoek

Known For: Improvements to the microscope, discovery of bacteria,

discovery of sperm, descriptions of all manner of microscopic cell
structures (plant and animal), yeasts, molds, and more
Also Known As: Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek, Antony Van Leeuwenhoek
Born: Oct. 24, 1632 in Delft, Holland
Died: Aug. 30, 1723 in in Delft, Holland
Education: Only basic education
Published Works: "Arcana naturœ detecta," 1695, a collection of his
letters sent to the Royal Society of London, translated into Latin for the
scientific community
Awards: Member of the Royal Society of London
Spouse(s): Barbara de Mey (m.1654–1666), Cornelia Swalmius (m.
1671–1694)
Children: Maria
Notable Quote: "My work...was not pursued in order to gain the praise
I now enjoy, but chiefly from a craving after knowledge."

Early Life 
Leeuwenhoek was born in Holland on October 24, 1632, and as a
teenager he became an apprentice at a linen draper's shop. Although it
doesn't seem a likely start to a life of science, from here Leeuwenhoek
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 was set on a path to inventing his microscope. At the shop, magnifying
glasses were used to count the threads and inspect the quality of cloth.
He was inspired and taught himself new methods for grinding and
polishing tiny lenses of great curvature, which gave magnifications up
to 275x (275 times the subject's original size), the finest known at that
time.

Contemporaneous Microscopes
People had been using magnifying lenses since the 12th century and
convex and concave lenses for vision correction since the 1200s and
1300s. In 1590, Dutch lens grinders Hans and Zacharias Janssen
constructed a microscope with two lenses in a tube; though it may not
have been the first microscope, it was a very early model. Also credited
with the invention of the microscope about the same time was Hans
Lippershey, the inventor of the telescope. Their work led to others'
research and development on telescopes and the modern compound
microscope, such as Galileo Galilei, Italian astronomer, physicist, and
engineer whose invention was the first given the name "microscope."

The compound microscopes of Leeuwenhoek's time had issues with

blurry figures and distortions and could magnify only up to 30 or 40
times.

Leeuwenhoek Microscope
Leeuwenhoek's work on his tiny lenses led to the building of his
microscopes, considered the first practical ones. They bore little
resemblance to today's microscopes, however; they were more like
very high-powered magnifying glasses and used only one lens instead
of two.
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 Other scientists didn't adopt Leeuwenhoek's versions of microscopes
because of the difficulty in learning to use them. They were small
(about 2 inches long) and were used by holding one's eye close to the
tiny lens and looking at a sample suspended on a pin.

Leeuwenhoek Discoveries
With these microscopes, though, he made the microbiological
discoveries for which he is famous. Leeuwenhoek was the first to see
and describe bacteria (1674), yeast plants, the teeming life in a drop of
water (such as algae), and the circulation of blood corpuscles in
capillaries. The word "bacteria" didn't exist yet, so he called these
microscopic living organisms "animalcules." During his long life, he
used his lenses to make pioneer studies on an extraordinary variety of
things—living and nonliving—and reported his findings in more than 100
letters to the Royal Society of England and the French Academy.

Leeuwenhoek's first report to the Royal Society in 1673 described bee

mouthparts, a louse, and a fungus. He studied the structure of plant
cells and crystals, and the structure of human cells such as blood,
muscle, skin, teeth, and hair. He even scraped the plaque from between
his teeth to observe the bacteria there, which, Leeuwenhoek
discovered, died after drinking coffee.

He was the first to describe sperm and postulated that conception

occurred when a sperm joined with an ovum, though his thought was
that the ovum just served to feed the sperm. At the time, there were
various theories of how babies formed, so Leeuwenhoek's studies of
sperm and ovum of various species caused an uproar in the scientific
community. It would be around 200 years before scientists would agree
on the process.
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 Leeuwenhoek's View on His Work
Like his contemporary Robert Hooke, Leeuwenhoek made some of the
most important discoveries of early microscopy. In one letter from 1716,
he wrote,

"My work, which I've done for a long time, was not pursued in order
to gain the praise I now enjoy, but chiefly from a craving after
knowledge, which I notice resides in me more than in most other
men. And therewithal, whenever I found out anything remarkable, I
have thought it my duty to put down my discovery on paper, so that
all ingenious people might be informed thereof."

He did not editorialize on meanings of his observations and

acknowledged he was not a scientist but merely an observer.
Leeuwenhoek was not an artist either, but he worked with one on the
drawings he submitted in his letters.

Death
Van Leeuwenhoek also contributed to science in one other way. In the
final year of his life, he described the disease that took his life. Van
Leeuwenhoek suffered from uncontrollable contractions of the
diaphram, a condition now known as Van Leeuwenhoek disease. He
died of the disease, also called diaphragmatic flutter, on August 30,
1723, in Delft. He is buried at the Oude Kerk (Old Church) in Delft.

Legacy
Some of Leeuwenhoek's discoveries could be verified at the time by
other scientists, but some discoveries could not because his lenses
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 were so superior to others' microscopes and equipment. Some people
had to come to him to see his work in person.

Just 11 of Leeuwenhoek's 500 microscopes exist today. His

instruments were made of gold and silver, and most were sold by his
family after he died in 1723. Other scientists did not use his
microscopes, as they were difficult to learn to use. Some improvements
to the device occurred in the 1730s, but big improvements that led to
today's compound microscopes didn't happen until the middle of the
19th century.

Sources
“Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek.” Famous Biologists Antonie Van
Leeuwenhoek Comments, famousbiologists.org.none
Cobb, M. "An Amazing 10 Years: The Discovery of Egg and Sperm in
the 17th Century." Reproduction in Domestic Animals 47 (Suppl. 4;
2012), 2–6, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester,
Manchester, UK.none
Lane, Nick. "The Unseen World: Reflections on Leeuwenhoek (1677)
‘Concerning Little Animals.’" Philosophical Transactions of the Royal
Society of London Series B, Biological Sciences 370 (1666) (April 19,
2015): 20140344.none
Samardhi, Himabindu & Radford, Dorothy & M. Fong, Kwun. (2010).
"Leeuwenhoek's disease: Diaphragmatic flutter in a cardiac patient.
Cardiology in the Young." Cardiology in the Young. 20. 334 - 336.none
Van Leeuwenhoek, Anton. Letter of June 12, 1716, to the Royal Society,
quoted by the University of California Museum of Paleontology,
Berkeley.none
Vision Engineering. "Later Developments." none
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