Antonie van Leeuwenhoek

Antonie was married to Barbara de Mey in July 1654 and the couple were blessed with five children of whom only one survived.

Following the demise of Barbara, Antonie entered the wedlock with Cornelia Swalmius in 1671.

This pioneering scientist breathed his last on August 26, 1723 after battling a rare abnormality of the muscles in the midriff region. Since he made extensive observations regarding his illness, the condition has been named as the ‘Van Leeuwenhoek’s Disease’.

On October 24, 1632, in the Delft city of Netherlands, this famous microbiologist was born to parents Philips Antonysz van Leeuwenhoek and Margaretha.

Antonie and his four elder siblings lost their father at quite an early age and their mother remarried after Philips’ demise. The young lad went to school for a short while in Leyden but then had to move to his uncle’s place in Benthuizen.

At the tender age of sixteen Leeuwenhoek was engaged in a draper’s shop in Amsrterdam where he learnt the ropes of the trade. Eventually he returned to his native city of Delft in the mid-1650s and went on to establish himself as a fabric merchant.

As the popularity of his linen store increased so did Antonie’s status in the society. He decided to utilize his new found fame to participate in the municipal politics. In 1660, he was granted the title of chamberlain and in this capacity he was in charge of managing the Delft sheriffs' assembly chamber. Later he would hold the positions of surveyor and wine gauger.

Leeuwenhoek used magnifying glasses for inspecting the quality of thread in his draper linen but he was not satisfied with the magnification provided by the available lenses. Thus he started making his own lenses and with time and expertise he devised microscopes that are believed to provide magnification of up to 500 times.

Armed with these powerful magnifying devices, he started recording his observations of minute creatures such as molds and lice. His friend Reinier de Graaf, who was a physician, encouraged Antonie to pursue his study of minute organisms and even helped establish a correspondence between the Royal Society in London and Leeuwenhoek.

Starting in 1673, Antonie began a series of communication with the Royal Society. His first published work included his study of lice, molds and bees.

In 1674, he used his hand made microscopes to observe miniscule living objects in various water bodies, human gut. He dubbed these minute living beings as “very little animalcules”, and estimated their sizes.

Though Leewenhoek is sometimes considered as inventor of microscope, it is not the truth. But it cannot be denied that his design of microscope and the observations which followed paved the way for many important discoveries and laid the foundation for emergence of microbiology.