Father of microbiology pasteur or leeuwenhoek

Antonie van leeuwenhoek contribution to microbiology
Antonie van leeuwenhoek discovery
Anton van leeuwenhoek contribution

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Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632 - 1723)

Antony Van Leeuwenhoek, c.1675 ©Van Leeuwenhoek was a Dutch textile merchant who became a pioneer of microbiology.

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek was born in Delft on 24 October 1632. In 1648, van Leeuwenhoek was apprenticed to a textile merchant, which is where he probably first encountered magnifying glasses, which were used in the textile trade to count thread densities for quality control purposes. Aged 20, he returned to Delft and set himself up as a linen-draper. He prospered and was appointed chamberlain to the sheriffs of Delft in 1660, and becoming a surveyor nine years later.

In 1668, van Leeuwenhoek paid his first and only visit to London, where he probably saw a copy of Robert Hooke's 'Micrographia' (1665) which included pictures of textiles that would have been of interest to him. In 1673, he reported his first observations - bee mouthparts and stings, a human louse and a fungus - to the Royal Society. He was elected a member of the society in 1680 and continued his association for the rest of his life by correspondence.

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Antoni van Leeuwenhoek was born in Delft, the Netherlands, on 24 October 1632 to Margriet Jacobsdochter van den Berch and Philips Thooniszoon, both of whom were middle-class artisans. He attended grammar school in Warmond, and then temporarily moved to Benthuizen to live with relatives. Eventually Leeuwenhoek left for Amsterdam to work as a cloth merchant’s apprentice. Returning to Delft, he married Barbara de Mey on 29 July 1654, and worked as a shopkeeper. The marriage resulted in five children, only one of whom, Maria, outlived Leeuwenhoek.

In 1660 Leeuwenhoek left shopkeeping and became a civil servant as usher to the aldermen in Delft. That position led him to other civil occupations that resulted in greater financial reward, such as Chief Warden of the city and Wine-gauger. Meanwhile, Leeuwenhoek’s wife died in 1666 and in 1671 he married Cornelia Swalmius, the daughter of a Calvinist minister. Swalmius died in 1694 and their one child died in infancy.

In 1671 Leeuwenhoek also began his scientific career by assembling simple microscopes and magnifying glasses

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Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) and His Impact on the History of Microscopy

In this conference we will take a close look at Leeuwenhoek’s seventeenth- and eighteenth-century microscopic practices as well as the development of the field of microscopy from his death to the twenty-first century. We will show how Leeuwenhoek was working as part of a large European network of scientists exploring the natural world with microscopes.The papers in this conference will make clear that microscopic practices and the way in which scientists communicated their findings to each other started in Leeuwenhoek’s time and are still used today.

SPEAKERS:

A Public event with ticket sales – please see website of the Royal Society:
https://royalsociety.org/science-events-and-lectures/2023/09/leeuwenhoek-conference/

Scientific Organization: Sietske Fransen, Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History, Tiemen Cocquyt, Rijksmuseum Boerhaave, Eric Jorink, Leiden University/Huygens Instituut