Antoni von Leeuwenhoek born (1632)

Antoni von Leeuwenhoek, the Dutch scientist known as the “father of microbiology” was born on October 24, 1632.  Leeuwenhoek was the first person to identify the small “animalcules” that we now know as bacteria and other forms of microscopic life.

Leeuwenhoek was anything but a classical biologist.  Born in Delft, Holland, to working class parents, he had little formal education.  He became an apprentice to a fabric-maker in Amsterdam and returned later to Delft to take up the textile trade.  Textile makers and buyers often used magnifying glasses to inspect their wares, and Leeuwenhoek acquired his first lens in 1653.  Soon after, he began to grind his own lenses.

He was quite talented at grinding lenses and polishing glass, and, accompanied by a naturally acute sense of vision, he began making his own versions of microscopes (he is sometimes credited with inventing the microscope, but that isn’t true).  Over his lifetime, he made more than 500 microscopes.  He made tiny pin-hole lenses, which he imbedded between sheets of copper.  Behind the lens, he fashioned a tiny pin that could hold specimens and a pair of screws that moved the specimen into focus.  While the early compound microscopes of the day could achieve only about 20-power magnification, Leeuwenhoek’s single-lens devices could produce 200-power magnification.  His skill at glass-making, lighting and delicate movements made him able to use the devices much more effectively than others.

Then the fun started! He began to examine unlikely bits of the biosphere—water drops from a lake, deposits scraped from between his teeth, blood.  Then he went on to virtually anything he could get behind a lens.  He found an abundance of simple living organisms and other biological structures, like blood cells and tiny hairs on microorganisms that we now call cilia.  He demonstrated how blood flows through blood vessels.  He was the first to describe bacteria, considered his most important accomplishment.  But he also discovered nematodes and rotifers, and described green algae Spirogyra and Vorticella.

From 1673 on, he wrote regular letters to the Royal Society of London.  Although he wrote in his native Dutch and had no academic credentials, the society translated his letters and published them.  Slowly he gained credibility as his discoveries were confirmed one after the other.  He was awarded membership in the Royal Society in 1680 and continued writing about his observations until the very end of his life in 1723.

Although naturalists tend to focus on big things—the so-called “charismatic megafauna”—we now know that the actions of microorganisms are essential to the ecological processes that support ecosystems and civilizations.  Water is cleaned, soil is created, materials 32are cycled, all as part of the life-cycles of microorganisms.  For that reason, Antoni von Leeuwenhoek, who first opened our eyes to the lives of tiny things, deserves a place in the annals of great conservationists!

References:

Coghlan, Andy.  2015.  Leeuwenhoek’s ‘animalcules’, just as he saw them 340 years ago.  New Scientist Daily News, 20 May 2015.  Available at:  https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27563-leeuwenhoeks-animalcules-just-as-he-saw-them-340-years-ago/.  Accessed October 24, 2017.

University of California Museum of Paleontology.  Antony van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723).  Available at:  http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/leeuwenhoek.html.  Accessed October 24, 2017.

This Month in Conservation

March 1
Yellowstone National Park Established (1872)
March 2
Theodore Geisel, or Dr. Seuss, Born (1904)
March 3
World Wildlife Day and Creation of CITES (1973)
March 3
Isle Royale National Park Authorized (1931)
March 4
Hot Springs National Park Established (1921)
March 5
Lynn Margulis, Evolutionary Biologist, Born (1938)
March 6
Martha Burton Williamson, Pioneering Malacologist, Born (1843)
March 7
Luther Burbank Born (1849)
March 8
Everett Horton Patents the Telescoping Fishing Rod (1887)
March 9
The Turbot War Begins (1995)
March 10
Cape Lookout National Seashore Established (1966)
March 11
Save the Redwoods League Founded (1918)
March 12
Girl Scouts Founded (1912)
March 12
Charles Young, First African American National Park Superintendent, Born (1864)
March 13
National Elephant Day, Thailand
March 14
First National Wildlife Refuge Created (1903)
March 15
Harold L. Ickes, Secretary of the Interior, Born (1874)
March 16
Amoco Cadiz Runs Aground (1978)
March 17
St. Patrick and Ireland’s Snakes
March 18
Nation’s First Wildlife Refuge Created (1870)
March 19
When the Swallows Return to Capistrano
March 20
“Our Common Future” Published (1987)
March 21
International Day of Forests
March 22
World Water Day
March 23
Sitka National Historical Park Created (1910)
March 24
John Wesley Powell, Western Explorer, Born (1834)
March 25
Norman Borlaug, Father of the Green Revolution, Born (1914)
March 26
Marjorie Harris Carr, Pioneering Florida Conservationist, Born (1915)
March 26
Kruger National Park Established (1898)
March 27
Trans-Alaska Pipeline Begun (1975)
March 28
Joseph Bazalgette, London’s Sewer King, Born (1819)
March 29
Niagara Falls Stops Flowing (1848)
March 30
The United States Buys Alaska (1867)
March 31
Al Gore, Environmental Activist and U.S. Vice President, Born (1948)
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