The History of The First Microscopes
a crude microscope
Did you ever wonder how the microscope changed the world?
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People around the world have different hobbies, like collecting stamps, baseball cards or insects. Imagine your hobby being grinding pieces of glass together to magnify an object.
Anton von Leeuwenhoek
Welcome to the world of Anton van Leeuwenhoek. He lived in the Netherlands in the 1600’s. He earned his living selling garments and buttons, but enjoyed crushing and grinding glass whenever he could.
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Even when he got a job as a janitor he spent his free time making his lenses better and better and using them to examine everything he could find from pieces of hair to seeds of plants. But nothing surprised him more when he discovered tiny little protozoans in a drop of rainwater.
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He also discovered what he called “animacules” when he scraped his teeth in the back of his mouth. He was so amazed that these animalcules moved around and seem to swim right before his eyes, that he wrote a letter to the Royal Society of England.
animalcules
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This was a group of important scientists and great thinkers in the world at the time. This group was so interested in Leeuwenhoek’s discovery that they sent one of their leaders, Robert Hooke, to Holland to investigate
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all images in this book cortesy of google images
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