Antonie van Leeuwenhoek

Van Leeuwenhoek's birth house in Delft, in the Netherlands, in 1926 before it was demolished

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek was born in Delft, Dutch Republic, on 24 October 1632. On 4 November, he was baptized as Thonis. His father, Philips Antonisz van Leeuwenhoek, was a basket maker who died when Antonie was only 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. Antonie had four older sisters: Margriet, Geertruyt, Neeltje, and Catharina.[9] When he was around ten years old his step-father died. He attended school in Warmond for a short time before being sent to live in Benthuizen with his uncle, an attorney. At the age of 16 he became a bookkeeper's apprentice at a linen-draper's shop in Amsterdam,[10] which was owned by the Scot William Davidson. Van Leeuwenhoek left there after six years.[11][12]

Van Leeuwenhoek married Barbara de Mey in July 1654, with whom he fathered one surviving daughter, Maria (four other children died in infancy). That same year he returned to Delft, where he would live and study for the rest of his life. He opened a draper's shop, which he ran throughout the 1650s. His wife died in 1666, and in 1671, van Leeuwenhoek remarried to Cornelia Swalmius with whom he had no children.[13] His status in Delft had grown throughout the years. In 1660 he received a lucrative job as chamberlain for the assembly chamber of the Delft sheriffs in the city hall, a position which he would hold for almost 40 years. In 1669 he was appointed as a land surveyor by the court of Holland; 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.[14]

The Geographer by Johannes Vermeer

Van Leeuwenhoek was a contemporary of another famous Delft citizen, the painter Johannes 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 and The 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, it is possible that they were at least acquaintances; van Leeuwenhoek acted as the executor of Vermeer's will after the painter died in 1675.[15][note 3]

A microscopic section of a one-year-old ash 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 2021 neutron tomography study of a high-magnification Leeuwenhoek microscope[16] captured images of the short glass stem characteristic of this lens creation method. For lower magnifications he also made ground lenses.[17] To help keep his methods confidential he apparently intentionally encouraged others to think grinding was his primary or only lens construction method.

Recognition by the Royal Society

After developing his method for creating powerful lenses and applying them to the study of the microscopic world,[18] van Leeuwenhoek introduced his work to his friend, the prominent Dutch physician Reinier de Graaf. When the Royal Society in London published the groundbreaking work of an Italian lensmaker in their journal Philosophical 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.[19]

A 1677 letter from van Leeuwenhoek to Oldenburg, with the latter's English translation behind, the full correspondence remains in the Royal Society Library

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.[20] 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.[21] The letters were translated into Latin or English by Henry Oldenburg, who had learned Dutch for this very purpose. He was also the first to use the word animalcules to translate the Dutch words that Leeuwenhoek used to describe microorganisms.[8] 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.[22] 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.[23]

Illustration of critique of Observationes microscopicae Antonii Levvenhoeck... published in Acta 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 by Sir 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,[24] van Leeuwenhoek's observations were fully acknowledged by the Royal Society.[25]

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek was elected to the Royal Society in February 1680 on the nomination of William Croone, a then-prominent physician.[note 4] Van Leeuwenhoek was "taken aback" by the nomination, which he considered a high honor, although he did not attend the induction ceremony in London, nor did he ever attend a Royal Society meeting.[27]

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.[31]

The single-lens microscopes of van Leeuwenhoek were relatively small devices, the largest being about 5 cm long.[32][33] They are used by placing the lens very close in front of the eye, while looking in the direction of the Sun. 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.[34] 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.[35] Such a method was also discovered independently by A. Mosolov and A. Belkin at the Russian Novosibirsk State Medical Institute.[36] In May 2021 researchers in the Netherlands published a non-destructive neutron tomography study of a Leeuwenhoek microscope.[16] 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 by Robert 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.[37][38] 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 British Royal Society.[39] 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.[40]

Van Leeuwenhoek's main discoveries are:

• infusoria (protists in modern zoological classification), in 1674
• bacteria, (e.g., large Selenomonads from the human mouth), in 1683[41][note 5][42][note 6]
• the vacuole of the cell
• spermatozoa, in 1677
• the banded pattern of muscular fibers, in 1682

In 1687, van Leeuwenhoek reported his research on the coffee bean. 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.[43]

Van Leeuwenhoek has been attributed as the first person to use a histological stain to color specimens observed under the microscope using saffron.[44]

Like Robert Boyle and Nicolaas Hartsoeker, van Leeuwenhoek was interested in dried cochineal, trying to find out if the dye came from a berry or an insect.[45][46][47]

Van Leeuwenhoek's religion was "Dutch Reformed" Calvinist.[48] 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.[49][50]

• 
  Van Leeuwenhoek's microscopes by Henry Baker
• 
  A replica of a microscope by van Leeuwenhoek

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 the midriff, which now is named van Leeuwenhoek's disease.[51] He died at the age of 90, on 26 August 1723, and was buried four days later in the Oude Kerk in Delft.[52]

In 1981, the British microscopist Brian 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.[53][54][55] Ford carried out observations with a range of single-lens microscopes, adding to our knowledge of van Leeuwenhoek's work.[56] 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 oppose received opinion, such as spontaneous generation, and he changed his mind in the light of evidence.[31]

On his importance in the history of microbiology and science in general, the British biochemist Nick 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.[23]

The Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital in Amsterdam, named after van Leeuwenhoek, is specialized in oncology.[57] In 2004, a public poll in the Netherlands to determine the greatest Dutchman ("De Grootste Nederlander") named van Leeuwenhoek the 4th-greatest Dutchman of all time.[58]

On 24 October 2016, Google commemorated the 384th anniversary of van Leeuwenhoek's birth with a Doodle that depicted his discovery of "little animals" or animalcules, now known as bacteria.[59]

The Leeuwenhoek Medal, Leeuwenhoek Lecture, Leeuwenhoek crater, Leeuwenhoeckia, Levenhookia (a genus in the family Stylidiaceae), Leeuwenhoekiella (an aerobic bacterial genus), and the scientific publication Antonie van Leeuwenhoek: International Journal of General and Molecular Microbiology are named after him.[60]

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  Memorial of Antonie van Leeuwenhoek in the Oude Kerk in Delft
• 
  Antonie van Leeuwenhoek is buried in the Oude Kerk.
• 
  A cluster of Escherichia coli bacteria magnified 10,000 times. In the early modern period, Leeuwenhoek's discovery and study of the microscopic world, like the Dutch discovery and mapping of largely unknown lands and skies, is considered one of the most notable achievements of the Golden Age of Dutch exploration and discovery (c. 1590s–1720s).

• Animalcule
• Regnier de Graaf
• Dutch Golden Age
• History of microbiology
• History of microscopy
• History of the microscope
• Robert Hooke
• Microscopic discovery of microorganisms
• Microscopic scale
• Science and technology in the Dutch Republic
• Scientific Revolution
• Nicolas Steno
• Jan Swammerdam
• Timeline of microscope technology
• Johannes Vermeer

• Cobb, Matthew: Generation: The Seventeenth-Century Scientists Who Unraveled the Secrets of Sex, Life, and Growth. (US: Bloomsbury, 2006)
• Cobb, Matthew: The Egg and Sperm Race: The Seventeenth-Century Scientists Who Unlocked the Secrets of Sex and Growth. (London: Simon & Schuster, 2006)
• Davids, Karel: The Rise and Decline of Dutch Technological Leadership: Technology, Economy and Culture in the Netherlands, 1350–1800 [2 vols.]. (Brill, 2008, ISBN 978-9004168657)
• Dobell, Clifford (1960) [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 (Dover Publications ed.). New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company.
• 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)
• Fournier, Marian: The Fabric of Life: The Rise and Decline of Seventeenth-Century Microscopy (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, ISBN 978-0801851384)
• 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 from the original on 18 February 2004. Retrieved 3 March 2016. Indeed, in this publication "Geneeskundig Verhaal van de Algemeene Loop-ziekte..." [‌Valk (1745)‌], 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, ISBN 978-9004304284)
• Ruestow, Edward G (1996). The Microscope in the Dutch Republic: The Shaping of Discovery. New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Snyder, Laura J. (2015). Eye of the Beholder: Johannes Vermeer, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, and the Reinvention of Seeing. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
• 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)
• Valk, Evert (1745). Een geneeskundig verhaal van de algemeene loop-ziekte, die te Kampen en in de om-geleegene streeken heeft gewoed in 't jaar 1736 neevens een werktuigkunstige, en natuurkundige beschryvinge van de oorzaak, uitwerking en genezinge waar in word aan-getoond, dat dezelve, waarschynlyk, door bloed-loose diertjes, beschreven in de werken van Anthony van Leeuwenhoek, het werd te weeg gebragt, en door kwik voor-naamentlyk, uit-geroeid [A work on a disease in the city of Kampen in 1736 caused by "little animals". These bloodless animals are most likely the little animals described in the work of Leeuwenhoek and they can be killed by treatment of mercury] (in Dutch). Haarlem: Van der Vinne. p. 97. Retrieved 3 March 2016.
• Wilson, Catherine: The Invisible World: Early Modern Philosophy and the Invention of the Microscope. (Princeton University Press, 1997, ISBN 978-0691017099)
• de Kruif, Paul (1926). "I Leeuwenhoek: First of the Microbe Hunters". Microbe Hunters. Blue Ribbon Books. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company Inc. pp. 3–24. Retrieved 14 October 2020.

Wikisource has original works by or about:
Antoni van Leeuwenhoek

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
Anton van Leeuwenhoek (category)

• Leeuwenhoek's letters to the Royal Society
• The Correspondence of Anthonie van Leeuwenhoek in EMLO
• Lens on Leeuwenhoek (site on Leeuwenhoek's life and observations)
• Vermeer connection website
• University of California, Berkeley article on van Leeuwenhoek
• Works by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Antonie van Leeuwenhoek at Internet Archive
• Retrospective paper on the Leeuwenhoek research by Brian J. Ford.
• Images seen through a van Leeuwenhoek microscope by Brian J. Ford.
• Instructions on making a van Leeuwenhoek Microscope Replica by Alan Shinn