Myriad, Microscopic and Marvellous: The World of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek [Hardcover]

The fascinating life and legacy of a pioneering seventeenth-century microbiologist.
 
The pioneering Dutch microbiologist Antoni van Leeuwenhoek uncovered hidden worlds of minuscule life. With his ingenious, self-made microscopes, he observed inconceivably tiny creatures and structures everywhere—in well water, sperm, pimples, and many other unlikely things besides. In the seventeenth century, his discoveries opened the door to realms previously unseen, making him a renowned researcher.Myriad, Microscopic and Marvellousexplores van Leeuwenhoek’s brilliant and sometimes peculiar ideas, setting them in the context of his time. Geertje Dekkers reveals how van Leeuwenhoek’s curiosity and inventions propelled the study of nature in surprising new directions, leaving a legacy that is still admired three centuries later.Geertje Dekkersis a historian and journalist who works for the Centraal Museum in Utrecht and the newspapersHistorisch Nieuwsbladandde Volkskrant.Andy Brownis a translator specializing in Dutch. He lives in the Netherlands.

In 1674, microbiologist Antoni van Leeuwenhoek made 'his most sensational discovery,' writes historian Dekkers in her revealing, finely illustrated biography. Examining water from a lake under a microscope, van Leeuwenhoek observed single-celled life forms racing in all directions: bacteria and protozoa. He also described red blood cells, capillaries, striated muscle fibres, spermatozoa and the eyes crystalline lens accurately. On his death in 1723, the UK Royal Society wrote that it had lost its most valuable correspondent.

Dekkers draws on an impressive archive of letters, municipal records, and scholarly publications, as well as Leeuwenhoek's own notes, to give readers a taste of the intellectual world of that time and to re-create some of the views he might have seen through his microscopes. . . . An insightful document of the fits and starts that l“o