Let me. Fill you in a bit then.
Antony Leeuenhoek was a Hollander, no, that’s not right. He was born in Holland, or the Netherlands, which makes him…Dutch. I hope that’s correct. Wait who is writing this? Hold on, let me check Wikipedia.
*Clears throat.
Antony Leeuenhoek was a Dutchman born in the Netherlands in 1632. He is best known as the guy who put tiny pond organisms under a microscopes and introduced so many people to the life of small stuff.
The microscope was conceived in the late 1500s (maybe earlier but these versions were, at least, somewhat unusable) and modified into something even more usable by the very early 1600s. So it is at least somewhat odd that until Leeuwenhoek came along not much description of tiny pond animals had been done. The Netherlands was too preoccupied with colonization of South Africa perhaps?
At any rate, Anthony, can I use his first name, made microscopes using the high quality lenses just becoming available and looked at small stuff; Blood cells, bacteria and little animals, or animalcules, as he referred to them. AND, perhaps the most important thing, he drew them. This opened up the world of microbiology to others.
Maybe the rest of this blog should just be awesome images from him.
Being the father of bacteriology you’d expect images of bacteria, and you would not be wrong.
Sources and further readings
From the biodiversity heritage library: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org
Dobell C. 1932. Antony van Leeuwenhoek and his “Little Animals”: Being some account of the father of protozoology and bacteriology and his multifarious discoveries in these disciplines. Harcourt Brace and Company. New York.
Hoole S. 1800-1807. The select works of Antony van Leeuwenhoek: containing his microscopical discoveries in many of the works of nature. G. Sidney. London.