In this article, Dutch capitalization is used fortussenvoegsels inDutch family names. The first letter in Van Leeuwenhoek is capitalized unless it is preceded by a name, initial or title of nobility.
Raised inDelft,Dutch Republic, Van Leeuwenhoek worked as adraper in his youth and founded his own shop in 1654. He became well-recognized in municipal politics and developed an interest in lensmaking. In the 1670s, he started to exploremicrobial life with his microscope.
Van Leeuwenhoek's birth house at Oosteinde, before it was demolished in 1926
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek was born inDelft,Dutch Republic, on 24 October 1632. On 4 November, he was baptized asThonis. His father, Philips Antonisz van Leeuwenhoek, was a basket maker who died when Antonie was five years old. His mother, Margaretha (Bel van den Berch), came from a well-to-do brewer's family. She remarried Jacob Jansz Molijn, a painter and the family moved toWarmond around 1640. Antonie had four older sisters: Margriet, Geertruyt, Neeltje, and Catharina.[11] When he was around ten years old his step-father died. He was sent to live inBenthuizen with his uncle, an attorney. At the age of 16 he became a bookkeeper's apprentice (casher) at a linen-draper's shop atWarmoesstraat in Amsterdam,[12] which was owned byWilliam Davidson. Van Leeuwenhoek left there after six years.[13][14]
In July 1654, Van Leeuwenhoek married Barbara de Mey in Delft, with whom he fathered one surviving daughter, Maria (four other children died in infancy). He would live and study for the rest of his life at Hypolytusbuurt in a house he bought in 1655. He opened a draper's shop, selling linen, yarn and ribbon to seamstresses and tailors.[15] His status in Delft grew throughout the years. In 1660 he received a lucrative job aschamberlain for thesheriffs inthe city hall, a position which he would hold for almost 40 years. His duties included maintaining the premises, heating, cleaning, opening for meetings, performing duties for those assembled, and maintaining silence on all matters discussed there.
In 1669 he was appointed as aland surveyor by the court ofHolland; at some time he combined it with another municipal job, being the official "wine-gauger" of Delft and in charge of the city wine imports and taxation.[16] His wife had died in 1666, and in 1671, Van Leeuwenhoek remarried to Cornelia Swalmius with whom he had no children.[17]
Van Leeuwenhoek was a contemporary of another famous Delft citizen, the painterJohannes Vermeer, who was baptized just four days earlier. It has been suggested that he is the man portrayed in two Vermeer paintings of the late 1660s,The Astronomer andThe Geographer, but others argue that there appears to be little physical similarity. Because they were both relatively important men in a city with only 24,000 inhabitants, living both close to the main market, it is likely they knew each other. Van Leeuwenhoek acted as theexecutor of Vermeer's will when the painter died in 1675.[18][note 4]
Van Leeuwenhoek's religion was "Dutch Reformed" andCalvinist.[19] LikeJan Swammerdam he often referred with reverence to the wonders God designed in making creatures great and small, and believed that his discoveries were merely further proof of the wonder of creation.[20][21]
A microscopic section of a one-year-oldash tree (Fraxinus) wood, drawing made by Van Leeuwenhoek
While running his draper shop, Van Leeuwenhoek wanted to see the quality of the thread better than what was possible using the magnifying lenses of the time. He developed an interest in lensmaking, although few records exist of his early activity. By placing the middle of a small rod of soda lime glass in a hot flame, one can pull the hot section apart to create two long whiskers of glass. Then, by reinserting the end of one whisker into the flame, a very small, high-quality glass lens is created. Significantly, a May 2021neutron tomography study of a high-magnification Leeuwenhoek microscope[22] captured images of the short glass stem characteristic of this lens creation method. For lower magnifications he also made ground lenses.[23] To help keep his methods confidential he apparently intentionally encouraged others to think grinding was his primary or only lens construction method.[citation needed]
Recognition by the Royal Society
After developing his method for creating powerful lenses and applying them to the study of the microscopic world,[24] Van Leeuwenhoek introduced his work to his friend, the prominent Dutch physicianReinier de Graaf. When theRoyal Society in London published the groundbreaking work of an Italian lensmaker in their journalPhilosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, de Graaf wrote to the editor of the journal,Henry Oldenburg, with a ringing endorsement of Van Leeuwenhoek's microscopes which, he claimed, "far surpass those which we have hitherto seen". In response, in 1673 the society published a letter from Van Leeuwenhoek that included his microscopic observations on mold, bees, and lice.[25] Then, in 1674, Van Leeuwenhoek made his most significant discovery. Starting from the assumption that life andmotility are similar, he determined that the moving objects observed under his microscope were little animals. He later recorded his observations in his diary.[26]
A 1677 letter from Van Leeuwenhoek to Oldenburg, with the latter's English translation behind. The full correspondence remains in theRoyal Society Library in London.
Van Leeuwenhoek's work fully captured the attention of the Royal Society, and he began corresponding regularly with the society regarding his observations. At first he had been reluctant to publicize his findings, regarding himself as a businessman with little scientific, artistic, or writing background, but de Graaf urged him to be more confident in his work.[27] By the time Van Leeuwenhoek died in 1723, he had written some 190 letters to the Royal Society, detailing his findings in a wide variety of fields, centered on his work in microscopy. He only wrote letters in his own colloquial Dutch; he never published a proper scientific paper in Latin. He strongly preferred to work alone, distrusting the sincerity of those who offered their assistance.[28] The letters were translated into Latin or English by Henry Oldenburg, who had learned Dutch for this very purpose.[citation needed] He was also the first to use the wordanimalcules to translate the Dutch words that Leeuwenhoek used to describe microorganisms.[9] Despite the initial success of Van Leeuwenhoek's relationship with the Royal Society, soon relations became severely strained. His credibility was questioned when he sent the Royal Society a copy of his first observations of microscopic single-celled organisms dated 9 October 1676.[29] Previously, the existence of single-celled organisms was entirely unknown. Thus, even with his established reputation with the Royal Society as a reliable observer, his observations of microscopic life were initially met with some skepticism.[30]
Illustration of critique ofObservationes microscopicae Antonii Levvenhoeck... published inActa Eruditorum, 1682
Eventually, in the face of Van Leeuwenhoek's insistence, the Royal Society arranged for Alexander Petrie, minister to the English Reformed Church in Delft; Benedict Haan, at that time Lutheran minister at Delft; and Henrik Cordes, then Lutheran minister at the Hague, accompanied bySir Robert Gordon and four others, to determine whether it was in fact Van Leeuwenhoek's ability to observe and reason clearly, or perhaps, the Royal Society's theories of life that might require reform. Finally in 1677,[31] Van Leeuwenhoek's observations were fully acknowledged by the Royal Society.[32]
Van Leeuwenhoek was elected to the Royal Society in February 1680 on the nomination ofWilliam Croone, a then-prominent physician.[note 5] Van Leeuwenhoek was "taken aback" by the nomination, which he considered a high honour, although he did not attend the induction ceremony in London, nor did he ever attend a Royal Society meeting.[34] He had his portrait painted byJan Verkolje with the certificate signed byJames II of England on the table beside him.
Scientific fame
By the end of the seventeenth century, Van Leeuwenhoek had a virtual monopoly on microscopic study and discovery. His contemporaryRobert Hooke, an early microscope pioneer, bemoaned that the field had come to rest entirely on one man's shoulders.[35] In 1673, his first letter was published in the journal of the Royal Society of London. He was visited over the years by many notable individuals who gazed at thetiny creatures. One of the first wasJan Swammerdam.[36] Around 1675, it wasJohan Huydecoper, who was very interested in collecting and growing plants for his estateGoudestein, becoming in 1682 manager of theHortus Botanicus Amsterdam.Christiaan Huygens,Leibniz (1676),John Locke (1678, 1685),James II of England (1679),William III of Orange,Mary II of England andThomas Molyneux (in 1685) visited. In October 1697, Van Leeuwenhoek visited the TsarPeter the Great on his boat, moored in theSchie or theArsenaal.[37] On this occasion, he presented the Tsar with an "eel-viewer", so Peter could study blood circulation whenever he wanted.[38] In 1706, it wasGovert Bidloo; in 1714,Richard Bradley (botanist); and, in 1716,Herman Boerhaave andFrederik Ruysch.[36] To the disappointment of his guests, Van Leeuwenhoek refused to reveal the cutting-edge microscopes he relied on for his discoveries, instead showing visitors a collection of average-quality lenses.[39]
Techniques
Van Leeuwenhoek was born near the Oostpoort. View of Delft from the east byJohannes VermeerDelft, straatzicht Oosteinde vanaf de OostpoortVan Leeuwenhoek lived at Oude Delft, near Warmoesbrug over Hippolytusbuurt
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek made more than 500 optical lenses. He also created at least 25 single-lens microscopes, of differing types, of which only nine have survived. These microscopes were made of silver or copper frames, holding hand-made lenses. Those that have survived are capable of magnification up to 275 times. It is suspected that Van Leeuwenhoek possessed some microscopes that could magnify up to 500 times. Although he has been widely regarded as a dilettante or amateur, his scientific research was of remarkably high quality.[40][citation needed]
The single-lens microscopes of Van Leeuwenhoek were relatively small devices, the largest being about 5 cm long.[41][42] They are used by placing the lens very close in front of the eye. The other side of the microscope had a pin, where the sample was attached in order to stay close to the lens. There were also three screws to move the pin and the sample along three axes: one axis to change the focus, and the two other axes to navigate through the sample.
Van Leeuwenhoek maintained throughout his life that there are aspects of microscope construction "which I only keep for myself", in particular his most critical secret of how he made the lenses.[43] For many years no one was able to reconstruct Van Leeuwenhoek's design techniques, but, in 1957, C.L. Stong used thin glass thread fusing instead of polishing, and successfully created some working samples of a Van Leeuwenhoek design microscope.[44] Such a method was also discovered independently by A. Mosolov and A. Belkin at the RussianNovosibirsk State Medical Institute.[45] In May 2021, researchers in the Netherlands published a non-destructive neutron tomography study of a Leeuwenhoek microscope.[22] One image in particular shows a Stong/Mosolov-type spherical lens with a single short glass stem attached(Fig. 4). Such lenses are created by pulling an extremely thin glass filament, breaking the filament, and briefly fusing the filament end. The nuclear tomography article notes this lens creation method was first devised byRobert Hooke rather than Leeuwenhoek, which is ironic given Hooke's subsequent surprise at Leeuwenhoek's findings.
Van Leeuwenhoek used samples and measurements to estimate numbers of microorganisms in units of water.[46][47] He also made good use of the huge advantage provided by his method. He studied a broad range of microscopic phenomena, and shared the resulting observations freely with groups such as the BritishRoyal Society.[48] Such work firmly established his place in history as one of the first and most important explorers of the microscopic world. Van Leeuwenhoek was one of the first people to observe cells, much like Robert Hooke.[6] He also corresponded withAntonio Magliabechi.[49]
Discoveries
Antoni van Leeuwenhoek.Mezzotint by J. Verkolje, 1686
Leeuwenhoek was one of the first to conduct experiments on himself. It was from his finger that blood was drawn for examination, and he placed pieces of his skin under a microscope, examining its structure in various parts of the body, and counting the number of vessels that permeate it.[50]
BothMarcello Malpighi and Jan Swammerdam saw these structures before Leeuwenhoek, but Leeuwenhoek was the first to recognize what they are:red blood cells.[51] Leeuwenhoek described theRBCs movement within the vessels: “If we now plainly perceive that the passage of the blood from the arteries into the veins of the tadpole is not performed in any other than those vessels, which are so minute as only to admit the passage of a single globule at a time, we may conclude that the same is performed in like manner in our own bodies and in those of other animals.”[52]
Spermatozoa, in 1677. For that he said: “Man comes not from an egg but from an animalcule that is found in male sperm,” and added “For my part, I would say that the male sperm and seeds of plants have been penetrated so far that there is nothing further to discover in this great secret, but I could err in my opinion.”[53]
It seems he usedhorseradish to find out what causes irritation on the tongue.[56] He used the effect ofvinegar.
Leeuwenhoek diligently began to search for his animalcules.[50] He found them everywhere: in rotten water, in ditches, on his own teeth. "Although I am now fifty years old," he wrote to the Royal Society, "my teeth are well preserved, because I am in the habit of rubbing them with salt every morning." He describedparadontitis.[57]
In 1684 he published his research on theovary.[58]
In 1687, Van Leeuwenhoek reported his research on thecoffee bean.[59][60] He roasted the bean, cut it into slices and saw a spongy interior. The bean was pressed, and an oil appeared. He boiled the coffee with rain water twice and set it aside.[61]
Van Leeuwenhoek has been recognized as the first person to use ahistological stain to color specimens observed under the microscope usingsaffron.[63] He used this technique only once.[64][65]
In 1702 he requested a book on Peruvian silver mines inPotosí.
He studied rainwater, the seeds of oranges, worms in sheep's liver, the eye of a whale, the blood of fishes,mites,coccinellidae, the skin of elephants,Celandine, andCinchona.[49]
View on Fish- and Meatmarket in Delft, opposite of Van Leeuwenhoek's houseVleeshal Delft
By the end of his life, Van Leeuwenhoek had written approximately 560 letters to the Royal Society and other scientific institutions concerning his observations and discoveries. Even during the last weeks of his life, Van Leeuwenhoek continued to send letters full of observations to London. The last few contained a precise description of his own illness. He suffered from a rare disease, an uncontrolled movement of themidriff, which now is namedVan Leeuwenhoek's disease.[70] He died at the age of 90, on 26 August 1723, and was buried four days later in theOude Kerk in Delft.[71]
In 1981, the British microscopistBrian J. Ford found that Van Leeuwenhoek's original specimens had survived in the collections of the Royal Society of London. They were found to be of high quality, and all were well preserved.[72][73][74] Ford carried out observations with a range of single-lens microscopes, adding to our knowledge of Van Leeuwenhoek's work.[75] In Ford's opinion, Leeuwenhoek remained imperfectly understood, the popular view that his work was crude and undisciplined at odds with the evidence of conscientious and painstaking observation. He constructed rational and repeatable experimental procedures and was willing to opposereceived opinion, such asspontaneous generation, and he changed his mind in the light of evidence.[40]
On his importance in the history of microbiology and science in general, the British biochemistNick Lane wrote that he was "the first even to think of looking—certainly, the first with the power to see." His experiments were ingenious, and he was "a scientist of the highest calibre", attacked by people who envied him or "scorned his unschooled origins", not helped by his secrecy about his methods.[30]
On 24 October 2016, Google commemorated the 384th anniversary of Van Leeuwenhoek's birth with aDoodle that depicted his discovery of "little animals" or animalcules, now known as unicellular organisms.[78]
^Van Leeuwenhoek is universally acknowledged as thefather of microbiology because he was the first to undisputedly discover/observe, describe, study, conduct scientific experiments withmicroscopic organisms (microbes), and relatively determine their size, using single-lensed microscopes of his own design.[1] Leeuwenhoek is also considered to be the father ofbacteriology andprotozoology (recently known asprotistology).[2][3]
^The spelling of Van Leeuwenhoek's name is exceptionally varied. He was christened asThonis, but always went byAntonj (corresponding with the EnglishAntony). The finalj of his given name is the Dutch tensei. Until 1683 he consistently used the spellingAntonj Leeuwenhoeck (ending in–oeck) when signing his letters. Throughout the mid-1680s he experimented with the spelling of his surname, and after 1685 settled on the most recognized spelling,Van Leeuwenhoek.[4]
^Dutch for 'small animals' (translated into English asanimalcules, fromanimalculumLatin for 'tiny animal')[9]
^He was also nominated as a "corresponding member" of theFrench Academy of Sciences in 1699, but there is no evidence that the nomination was accepted, nor that he was ever aware of it.[33]
^The "Lens on Leeuwenhoek" site, which is exhaustively researched and annotated, prints this letter in the original Dutch and in English translation, with the date 17 September 1683. Assuming that the date of 1676 is accurately reported from Pommerville (2014), that book seems more likely to be in error than the intensely detailed,scholarly researched website focused entirely on Van Leeuwenhoek.
^Sixty-two years later, in 1745, a physician correctly attributed a diarrhea epidemic to Van Leeuwenhoek's "bloodless animals" (Valk 1745, cited byMoll 2003).
References
^Lane, Nick (6 March 2015). "The Unseen World: Reflections on Leeuwenhoek (1677) 'Concerning Little Animal'."Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 2015 Apr; 370 (1666):doi:10.1098/rstb.2014.0344
^Corliss, John O (1975). "Three Centuries of Protozoology: A Brief Tribute to its Founding Father, A. van Leeuwenhoek of Delft".The Journal of Protozoology.22 (1):3–7.doi:10.1111/j.1550-7408.1975.tb00934.x.PMID1090737.
^Chung, King-thom; Liu, Jong-kang:Pioneers in Microbiology: The Human Side of Science. (World Scientific Publishing, 2017,ISBN978-9813202948). "We may fairly call Leeuwenhoek "The first microbiologist" because he was the first individual to actually culture, see, and describe a large array of microbial life. He actually measured the multiplication of the bugs. What is more amazing is that he published his discoveries."
^A. Schierbeek,Measuring the Invisible World: The Life and Works of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek F R S, Abelard-Schuman (London and New York, 1959), QH 31 L55 S3,LCCN59-13233. This book contains excerpts of Van Leeuwenhoek's letters and focuses on his priority in several new branches of science, but makes several important references to his spiritual life and motivation.[ISBN missing]
^Frank N. Egerton (2006). "A History of the Ecological Sciences, Part 19: Leeuwenhoek's Microscopic Natural History".Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America.87: 47.doi:10.1890/0012-9623(2006)87[47:AHOTES]2.0.CO;2.
^Marion Peters (2010) De wijze koopman, Het wereldwijde onderzoek van Nicolaes Witsen (1641–1717), burgemeester en VOC-bewindhebber van Amsterdam. p. 139
^Greenfield, Amy Butler (2005).A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desire. New York: Harper Collins Press.ISBN0-06-052276-3[page needed]
^Life and work of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek of Delft in Holland; 1632–1723 (1980) Published by the Municipal Archives Delft, p. 9
^van Leeuwenhoek, Antoni (1962).On the circulation of the blood: Latin text of his 65th letter to the Royal Society, Sept. 7th, 1688.Brill Hes & De Graaf. p. 28.ISBN978-90-6004-098-0.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
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Davids, Karel:The Rise and Decline of Dutch Technological Leadership: Technology, Economy and Culture in the Netherlands, 1350–1800 [2 vols.]. (Brill, 2008,ISBN978-9004168657)
Ford, Brian J. (1991).The Leeuwenhoek Legacy. Bristol and London: Biopress and Farrand Press.
Ford, Brian J.:Single Lens: The Story of the Simple Microscope. (London: William Heinemann, 1985, 182 pp)
Ford, Brian J.:The Revealing Lens: Mankind and the Microscope. (London: George Harrap, 1973, 208 pp)
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Huerta, Robert (2003).Giants of Delft: Johannes Vermeer and the Natural Philosophers: The Parallel Search for Knowledge during the Age of Discovery. Pennsylvania:Bucknell University Press.
Moll, Warnar (2003)."Antonie van Leeuwenhoek".Onderzoeksportal [Research Portal]. University of Amsterdam. Archived fromthe original on 18 February 2004. Retrieved3 March 2016.[Referring toValk (1745)] Indeed, in this publication "Geneeskundig Verhaal van de Algemeene Loop-ziekte..." the author uses the work of Leeuwenhoek in describing the disease, draws some (preliminary) conclusions about the cause of the disease, he warns "non-believers of Van Leeuwenhoek to use a magnifying glass" and gives commentaries on the work of Anthonie van Leeuwenhoek and his findings.
Payne, Alma Smith (1970).The Cleere Observer: A biography of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek. London:Macmillan.
Ratcliff, Marc J.:The Quest for the Invisible: Microscopy in the Enlightenment. (Ashgate, 2009, 332 pp)
Robertson, Lesley; Backer, Jantien et al.:Antoni van Leeuwenhoek: Master of the Minuscule. (Brill, 2016,ISBN978-9004304284)
Ruestow, Edward G (1996).The Microscope in the Dutch Republic: The Shaping of Discovery. New York:Cambridge University Press.
Struik, Dirk J.:The Land of Stevin and Huygens: A Sketch of Science and Technology in the Dutch Republic during the Golden Century (Studies in the History of Modern Science). (Springer, 1981, 208 pp)
Wilson, Catherine:The Invisible World: Early Modern Philosophy and the Invention of the Microscope. (Princeton University Press, 1997,ISBN978-0691017099)
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