Which Dutch scientist developed the first practically usable microscope in the 17th century?

  • A. Christiaan Huygens
  • B. Antoni van Leeuwenhoek
  • C. Jan Swammerdam
  • D. Herman Boerhaave

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This scientist from the Golden Age is often called the “father of microbiology” and came from Delft. He had no formal scientific training but was originally a cloth merchant.

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The correct answer is B. Antoni van Leeuwenhoek.

Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) developed the first microscope in the 17th century with which you could actually see microorganisms. Microscopes already existed, but they were basically worthless compared to what he made. He achieved magnifications of up to 270 times, which was simply science fiction at the time.

The secret? Van Leeuwenhoek ground lenses with a precision that nobody else could match. He never told anyone that trick (smart of him), which meant his microscopes simply remained the best in the world. With those things, he discovered bacteria, red blood cells, spermatozoa, and all kinds of other microscopic creatures that he called “animalcules.” Actually quite charming.

Christiaan Huygens was a brilliant physicist and astronomer, Jan Swammerdam did groundbreaking work with insects and anatomy, and Herman Boerhaave was a famous physician (though from the 18th century). All top-notch scientists, but none of them made these revolutionary microscopes.

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Antoni van Leeuwenhoek is truly a great example of someone who was completely self-taught and turned the entire scientific world upside down. He was simply a cloth merchant in Delft and used magnifying glasses to inspect fabrics. He apparently became so enthusiastic about it that it turned into a lifelong passion.

What makes him special? He had no scientific education and didn’t even speak Latin (the language in which all scholars communicated at the time). Nevertheless, he wrote letters to the Royal Society in London for fifty years, then the premier scientific institution in Europe. More than 190 letters with detailed descriptions and drawings of what he saw.

In 1676, he became the first human in the world to see bacteria. Simply by placing some dental plaque under his microscope. He described them as “very small living animalcules, moving very prettily.” He also discovered blood cells, spermatozoa, and how blood flows through capillaries.

Van Leeuwenhoek built more than 500 microscopes during his lifetime (as far as we know), but only nine have survived. He used single-lens microscopes, essentially super-powerful magnifying glasses with one perfectly ground lens. Other scientists worked with compound microscopes that had multiple lenses, but these produced much blurrier images.

He died in 1723 at the age of 90 in Delft, where he had remained his entire life.

Only in the 19th century could other scientists finally make microscopes that were as good as Van Leeuwenhoek’s. That says something about how far ahead of his time he was. The Golden Age produced many Dutch scientists, but what Van Leeuwenhoek did for microbiology is simply unprecedented.