Who first discovered microbes?
Microbes were here long before the human family arrived to enjoy life on this wondrous planet. But until the microscope was invented, these swarming midgets were invisible. At last they were spotted by a man whose hobby was spying small miracles through his homemade microscopes.
Ths olden city of delft stands on the flat lowlands of holland. Its neat canals axe bordered with story book houses and spanned by 70 bridges. It was the home of the painter Jan Vermeer, and for hundreds of years its fine blue pottery has been world famous. Anthony van Leeuwenhoek was born in this city of old world charm. The year was 1632,
His life was crowded with business and civic activities, but he had time for a hobby which made him famous as the first man to spy and describe the tiny living things we call microbes. At 22, Leeuwenhoek ran his own textile store, and six years later he was chosen to be chamberlain to the city sheriff. He studied and became a surveyor, and later he became the city's official wine tester. In his spare time, he made the best microscopes of his day and through them beheld the small miracles of nature.
In the 1670s Leeuwenhoek’s microscopes veers finer than those used by the world expert Robert Hooke of London. Curiosity drove him to examine the microscopic wrigglexs in a drop of rain water, to investigate a speck of pepper in hopes of finding what made it hot and to magnify a scraping of gritty tartar from his teeth. Leeuwenhoek knew he was a business man and at first was shy about calling his hobby to the attention of the experts.
However, a sense of wonder at the small miracles he saw caused him to make lots of notes and drawings. Finally he had to tell someone who might share his sense of wonder. So he sent his records to the royal society of London. Hooke and his co workers were agog, and they made this modest hobbyist a member of their renowned soeiety.
Leeuwenhoek called his microbes animalcules, or little animals. In 1675 he spied animalcules in rain water, two years before Hooke had a microscope good enough to reveal them. He never found why pepper is hot, but he saw microbes in a speck of rotting pepper. In 1683 he saw them in scrapings of tartar. The notes and drawings he made to describe these animalcules prove that they were common bacteria that cause tooth decay.
Leeuwenhoek's hobby sprang from thrilling curiosity and wonder. He thought his microscopic midgets were more wondrous than giant whales. But he often apologized for his lack of skill and training. The modest man never realized that he was the greatest microscope expert of his day. His hobby opened the door to a whole new world of science.