Leeuwenhoek was a cloth merchant in Delft, Holland. He is an odd member in the list of luminaries of science since he had no formal scientific education and he knew no other language other than his native Dutch. But what he lacked in education, he made up with curiosity and astute observation skills. Also his mind was not barricaded by the scientific dogmas of his time.
Early Life
Leeuwenhoek was born in Delft, Holland on 24th October 1632. His father, Philips Teunisz Leeuwenhoek, was a basket maker and his mother, Margriete Jacobsdr van den Berch, came from a family of brewers. Young Antony was sent to a boarding school in a village called Warmond near Leiden at the age of eight. Soon after, he was invited by his uncle to live with him at a village called Benthuizen, near Delft. When Antony was sixteen, he secured an apprenticeship with a cloth merchant in Amsterdam.
This is where Leeuwenhoek saw his first microscope, a magnifying glass. Such magnifying glasses were used by drapers to inspect the quality of cloth. These glasses were able to magnify things about three times. In 1654, he came back to Delft where he set up his own lucrative drapery business and lived there till his death in 1723. He also worked as a surveyor, wine assayer and a minor city official.
Microscopes of Leeuwenhoek
Leeuwenhoek made around 500 “microscopes” during his lifetime. They were nothing like the compound microscopes seen today. They were composed of a single small lens. But his lenses were capable of magnifying about 270 times, which was quite an achievement, since compound microscopes made by Robert Hooke and Jan Swammerdam were able to attain only twenty or thirty times magnification.
Observations of Leeuwenhoek
Leeuwenhoek started observing a variety of samples like pond water, tartar, bee mouth parts and stings, etc. In 1673, he started sending his microscopic observations in the form of letters to the newly formed Royal Society of London, where his observations were translated into English or Latin and printed in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. In a letter written in 1674, he recorded his observations of lake water and an excellent description of the green alga, Spirogyra. He described the ciliate, Vorticella in 1702. But his biggest and most important observation came in 1683.
While examining tartar samples from mouths of two ladies and “of two men who had never cleaned their teeth in their lives,” he saw “very little living animalcules, very prettily a-moving.” These were among the first observations of bacteria ever recorded. This led to his appointment as a Fellow of the Royal Society, although he never attended any of its meetings. In 1698, he demonstrated circulation of blood in the capillaries of an eel to Tsar Peter the Great of Russia.
Leeuwenhoek wrote approximately 560 letters to the Royal Society and other institutions over a period of 50 years. He died at the age of 90 from a rare disease now known as “Leeuwenhoek’s Disease.” His main discoveries are the infusoria (protists), large Selenomonads (bacteria from the human mouth), spermatozoa and the banded pattern of muscular fibers.
In a letter to the Royal Society, dated June 12, 1716, Leeuwenhoek 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.”
References
Brianjford.com “Anton van Leeuwenhoek” (Accessed 12 June 2010)
Inventors.about.com “Anton van Leeuwenhoek” (Accessed 12 June 2010)
Ucmp.berkeley.edu “Antony van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723)” (Accessed 12 June 2010)
Zephyrus.co.uk “Anton van Leeuwenhoek – 1632 – 1723” (Accessed 12 June 2010)
Jitendra Rathod - Jitendra holds a Master's Degree in Microbiology. He had been a Lecturer, teaching the subject to undergrads and postgrads for 8 years.
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