Microscopio de van leeuwenhoek biography
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Atlas of plant and animal histology
The invention of the telescope allowed us to explore planets and stars and thus better understand the relationship of man with the Universe. In the same way, the microscopes opened the door of another until then unknown world that would become essential for the later development of civilization. Antony van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723), together with Robert Hooke, was one of the first to discover the microscopic universe thanks to the use of microscopes manufactured by himself. He described previously unknown ways of life and stablished the foundations for new branches of science that would explain many biological processes, hitherto a field of speculation, often with religious influences. Perhaps he was not aware of the historical importance of his observations or the value they would have in understanding life, but he opened a door for man to change the point of view of his relationship with nature. Leeuwenhoek is considered to be one of the father
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Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632 - 1723)
Antony Van Leeuwenhoek, c.1675 ©Van Leeuwenhoek was a Dutch textile merchant who became a pionjär of microbiology.
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek was born in Delft on 24 October 1632. In 1648, van Leeuwenhoek was apprenticed to a textile merchant, which fryst vatten where he probably first encountered magnifying glasses, which were used in the textile trade to count thread densities for quality control purposes. Aged 20, he returned to Delft and set himself up as a linen-draper. He prospered and was appointed chamberlain to the sheriffs of Delft in 1660, and becoming a surveyor nine years later.
In 1668, van Leeuwenhoek paid his first and only visit to London, where he probably saw a kopia of Robert Hooke's 'Micrographia' (1665) which included pictures of textiles that would have been of interest to him. In 1673, he reported his first observations - bee mouthparts and stings, a human louse and a fungus - to the Royal Society. He was elected a member of
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The Microscope
The development of the microscope allowed scientists to make new insights into the body and disease.
It’s not clear who invented the first microscope, but the Dutch spectacle maker Zacharias Janssen (b.1585) is credited with making one of the earliest compound microscopes (ones that used two lenses) around 1600. The earliest microscopes could magnify an object up to 20 or 30 times its normal size.
In the 1660s, another Dutchman, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) made microscopes by grinding his own lenses. His simple microscopes were more like magnifying glasses, with only one lens.
But the high-quality, hand-ground lenses could magnify an object by up to 200 times.
Leeuwenhoek observed animal and plant tissue, human sperm and blood cells, minerals, fossils, and many other things that had never been seen before on a microscopic scale.
He presented his findings to the Royal Society in London, where Robert Hooke was also making remarkabl