Who is the father of bacteria

He revolutionized biological science by exposing microscopic life to the world. In , Leeuwenhoek was born on 24th October in Delft, Netherlands. His father was a basket maker and died in his early childhood. Leeuwenhoek did not acquire much education or learn any language before getting involved in trade.

At the age of 16, he worked as a bookkeeper at a linen-draper's shop in Amsterdam. Six years later in , he returned to Delft to establish his own draper business and got married. In , he served as a minor city official and afterwards worked as wine inspector gauger and a surveyor as well. He remarried in after the death of his first wife.

Textile merchants widely used small lenses for cloth inspection and Leeuwenhoek acquired his own magnifying glass for trade purposes in This was his introduction with microscope. With the passage of time, he got keenly interested in glass processing and lens grinding. He was also inspired by Robert Hooke's microscopic observations in his book Micrographia.

He built a simple microscope during and started observing different substances. He experimented to calculate the number of microorganisms in water and examined other objects like skin, hair and blood. He also studied physical structure of ivory and discovered parasites in flea using more powerful microscopes.

Antony Leeuwenhoek had naturally gifted eyesight which appropriately accommodated his skills and passion for lens grinding. With his superior light adjusting techniques, he was able to make microscopes which could magnify over times and to some he even had microscopes magnifying up to times. Leeuwenhoek was not into writing books but he communicated with the Royal Society of London through letters. He sent to the Royal Society his various recorded microscopic observations.

In , his observations about stings of bees were published in the Royal Society's journal. He soon established good reputation with the Royal society through his deep analysis and careful observations. Spontaneous generation of bacteria and other organisms was thought to be the driving process of putrefaction. This, however, was debunked by Louis Pasteur whose research on sterilization clearly indicated that this was not the case.

Robert Koch's research, famously dubbed "Koch's postulates," demonstrated that infectious disease was caused by microorganisms and therefore shed light on the nature of infectious disease.

The impact of the emergence of microbiology is monumental, not simply because of the scope of understanding that we have gained from its discovery, but also in terms of the increased prosperity of humans that has occurred as a result of our understanding of these "little creatures. In his letter of , then, Leeuwenhoek set out a detailed context for his observations. He was religiously plain and straightforward in all he did, and therefore sometimes almost immodestly frank in describing his observations.

On a closer reading, the colloquial manner of Leeuwenhoek's letter conceals the workings of his precise and methodical mind. Leeuwenhoek was acutely aware of contamination; he replenished evaporated water with snow-water, the purest then available, making every effort not to introduce little animals from any other source.

He sampled water from many different sources—his well, the sea, rain water, drain pipes, lakes—always taking care to clean his receptacles. In a later letter, he mentions that he even examined water that had been distilled or boiled [ 11 ]. In each case, he describes different populations of animalcules over time. Time is critical. Frequently, he observes nothing for a week, checking each day, before reporting a profusion of little animals of diverse types, replicating themselves over several days before dying back again.

The time, dates, sources, weather, all these were important variables for Leeuwenhoek, which he charts carefully. He was resolutely opposed to the idea of spontaneous generation, nearly years before Pasteur finally resolved the matter with his swan-necked flasks. Leeuwenhoek later described the procreation of cells via copulation or schism to release daughter cells in arresting detail.

But his early disbelief of spontaneous generation is implicit in the comparisons of his paper, in his care to avoid contamination, and his estimation of rates of growth. Leeuwenhoek also reports experiments, adding peppercorns to water, both crushed and uncrushed as well as ginger, cloves, nutmeg and vinegar, omitted from Oldenburg's excerpts for Philosophical Transactions.

Again, the colloquial language deceives. He later describes bacterial motility unequivocally [ 13 ]. An innocent, early example of spinning data to sell to a journal? But the natural philosophers of the Royal Society, in pioneering the methods we still use in science today, were not easily spun. Leeuwenhoek's letter had been read aloud over several sessions and attracted great interest, verging on consternation. Some of these limner's drawings are shown in figure 3.

Leeuwenhoek also sent eight testimonies from gentlemen of repute—a Lutheran minister, a notary and a barrister, among others.

It is striking to the modern reader that none of these gentlemen were natural philosophers acquainted with the methods of science; but according to the historian Steven Shapin, it was the bond of the gentleman that counted.

The practice of signed testimonies from gentlemen was common in the seventeenth century; the fact that Leeuwenhoek called upon eight such testimonies attests to the unprecedented character of his findings, but also perhaps to his lower social standing [ 18 ]. From Leeuwenhoek [ 16 ]. From Leeuwenhoek [ 17 ]. The Royal Society tasked Nehemiah Grew, the botanist, to reproduce Leeuwenhoek's work, but Grew failed; so in , on succeeding Grew as Secretary, Hooke himself turned his mind back to microscopy.

That these animalls should be soe perfectly shaped and indeed with such curious organs of motion as to be able to move nimbly, to turne, stay, accelerate and retard their progresse at pleasure. Unlike Leeuwenhoek, Hooke gave precise details of his microscopical methods, and demonstrated them before the gathered fellows, including Sir Christopher Wren, later publishing both his methods and observations in Microscopium [ 20 ].

As noted by the microscopist Brian J. Ford [ 22 ] and microbiologist Howard Gest [ 23 ], Hooke was a central and too-often overlooked figure in the history of microbiology: his earlier book Micrographia most likely inspired Leeuwenhoek to begin his own microscopical studies. Without Hooke's support and verification—a task beyond several of the best microscopists of the age, including Grew—Leeuwenhoek might easily have been dismissed as a charlatan.

Instead, through Hooke's impressive demonstrations, and with the direct support of the patron of the Royal Society, King Charles II, Leeuwenhoek was elected a Fellow in Others had independently changed their view of Leeuwenhoek in the interim, but that did little to alter the course of events.

Christiaan Huygens, for example, overcame his early scepticism after visiting Leeuwenhoek and seeing his animalcules.

He went on to grind his own lenses, observing various protists himself [ 24 ]. Indeed, Huygens made a number of pioneering observations, but these remained in manuscript and were unpublished until the turn of the twentieth century [ 25 ].

Ironically, Hooke's admirable comments on the construction of microscopes might have undermined Leeuwenhoek's later reputation. Hooke made various types of microscope. The lens is produced by melting Venice glass into thin threads, containing little globules, which are then ground and polished, and mounted against a needle hole pricked through a thin plate of brass figure 4. But because these, though exceeding easily made, are yet very troublesome to be us'd, because of their smallness, and the nearness of the Object; therefore to prevent both of these, and yet have only two refractions, I provided me a Tube of Brass' [ 26 ].

It seems that Hooke's aversion to simple single-lens microscopes passed on down the generations, but not his appreciation of their merits. The compound microscope, with its refractive aberrations, became the tool of choice, and Leeuwenhoek's microscopes were quietly forgotten, their oblivion hastened by Leeuwenhoek's own secrecy, notwithstanding his gift of 13 microscopes, with corresponding specimens, to the Royal Society on his death in at the age of Leeuwenhoek had actively discouraged teaching his methods, for reasons that are troubling today in an age when education is open to all.

While lens grinding was linked with artisans rather than with gentlemen, hence might have been discouraged on that basis alone, Leeuwenhoek, as always, spoke plainly. Nothing, as far as I know: because most students go there to make money out of science, or to get a reputation in the learned world.

But in lens grinding, and discovering things hidden from our sight, these count for nought. And I'm satisfied too that not one man in a thousand is capable of such study, because it needs much time, and spending much money; and you must always keep on thinking about these things, if you are to get any results.

And over and above all, most men are not curious to know: nay, some even make no bones about saying: What does it matter whether we know this or not? Most scientists, I imagine, would see themselves as that one man in a thousand; it is our task today to persuade others that it does indeed matter, not for any immediate benefit, but for the sake of curiosity and its unknowable contribution to the sum of human knowledge and wellbeing.

The dominant use of compound microscopes over the following centuries meant that the brief blaze of Leeuwenhoek's discoveries was nearly extinguished until the great compound microscope makers of the early-nineteenth century, notably Joseph Bancks who also produced some high-powered single-lens microscopes, used by Robert Brown in his discovery of Brownian motion and cytoplasmic streaming, and by Darwin aboard the Beagle.

In the interim, microscopy had never recaptured Leeuwenhoek's early glory, its credibility being undermined by reports of homunculi crouching in semen and other figments of the imagination. The concept of preformation was called into serious question from the s, beginning with Abraham Trembley's work on the regeneration of freshwater polyps [ 31 ]. The damaging accusation of seeing things that were not there, combined with Linnaeus's insinuated absence of structure, meant that few believed Leeuwenhoek could have seen cells as small as bacteria; even the empathetic Dobell struggled to conceive what magical form of lighting Leeuwenhoek must have employed to view his specimens.

Only the galvanizing work of Brian J. Ford, who rediscovered some of Leeuwenhoek's samples in the library of the Royal Society in , resurrected the glory of the single-lens microscope [ 32 ]. That left little scope for disbelief: plainly, Leeuwenhoek really did see much of what he claimed. So what is Leeuwenhoek's legacy? Most of his discoveries were forgotten, and only rediscovered in the nineteenth century, years later, being then interpreted in the context of the newly developing cell theory, with little reference back to Leeuwenhoek himself.

In this regard Leeuwenhoek's legacy is analogous to that of Gregor Mendel, likewise rediscovered at a time when others were exploring similar ideas. Leeuwenhoek's work, of course, ranged far beyond microbiology. In all, he sent around letters to the Royal Society, of which were published, touching on many aspects of biology and even mineralogy. He remains the most highly published author in the journal.

He is considered to be the founder of many fields, but none of them more important than his astonishing discoveries in microbiology, and none conveyed with such delight. Leeuwenhoek was captivated by his animalcules. His exhilaration in discovery, combined with a fearless and surefooted interpretation of unknown vistas, is for me Leeuwenhoek's true legacy. It is a spirit effervescent in many later pioneers of microbiology, indeed in science more generally.

And many of the problems that beset Leeuwenhoek troubled them too. Take the ultrastructure of cells, especially protists. These globuls, which in the bursting of these creatures did flow asunder here and there, were about the bigness of the first very small creatures [bacteria]. Another half-century was to elapse before Lynn Margulis and others demonstrated that mitochondria and chloroplasts do indeed derive from bacterial endosymbionts [ 38 ]; and even then, not without a fight.

I doubt that the idea of endosymbiosis would have shocked Leeuwenhoek; nor would he have been much surprised by the contemptuous disbelief of many biologists over decades.

The pioneer of comparative biochemistry, Albert Kluyver, was Professor of Microbiology in the Technical University of Delft from until his death in More than anyone else, Kluyver appreciated that biochemistry unified life [ 39 ]. He realized that different types of respiration he cites sulfate reduction, denitrification and methanogenesis are fundamentally equivalent, all involving the transfer of electrons from a donor to an acceptor. He appreciated that all forms of respiration and fermentation are united in that they all drive growth by means of phosphorylation.

Kluyver's student Cornelis van Niel, together with Roger Stanier, made some headway in the s before despairing of the endeavour altogether. In fact, one can say that no unit of structure smaller than the cell in its entirety is recognizable as the site of either metabolic unit process ' [ 41 ].

This is a beautiful insight, worthy of Leeuwenhoek himself. In eukaryotes, respiration and photosynthesis are conducted in mitochondria and chloroplasts, respectively, and continue perfectly well in isolation from the rest of the cell, as all the soluble enzymes needed are constrained within the bioenergetic membranes of the organelle.

In bacteria, by contrast, the enzymes required are split between the cell membrane whether invaginated or otherwise and the cytosol, making the bacterium as a whole the indivisible functional unit.

This distinction applies as much to cyanobacteria classed as algae, not bacteria, by Ernst Haeckel and later systematists as to other bacteria. Stanier and van Niel therefore argued that bacteria are a single monophyletic group, all similar in their basic plan, but insisted that any further attempts to define phylogeny were hopeless. The timing was unfortunate. Woese [ 45 ] was soon dismissing Stanier and van Niel as epitomising the dark ages of microbiology, when microbiologists had given up any prospect of a true phylogeny.

Woese's tree was based on ribosomal RNA. He showed that prokaryotes are not monophyletic at all, but subdivide into two great domains, the bacteria and archaea. For the first time, it seemed possible to reconstruct the evolutionary relationships between Leeuwenhoek's animalcules in an evolutionary tree of life. Woese and his co-workers went so far as to argue that the term prokaryote was obsolete, being an invalid negative definition i.

The three domains tree is still the standard text book view.