Anton van Leeuwenhoek
Antonie Philips van Leeuwenhoek was born on the 24th of October in 1632 and died on the 30th of August 1723 at the age of 91. He was a Dutch tradesman and scientist from Delft, the Netherlands. Many consider him the first microbiologist and call him “The Father of Microbiology”. He was not born to anyone considered great or important in fact he was the son of a basket maker and at the age of 16he secured an apprenticeship with a Scottish cloth merchant in Amsterdam.
He is most famous for his improvement on the microscope and for his contributions towards the establishment of microbiology. He was first to observe and describe single celled organisms with his handcrafted microscopes. He originally referred tot eh single celled organisms as animalcules but now we refer to them as microorganisms. As it is he was also the first to observe muscle fibers, bacteria, spermatozoa, and blood flow in capillaries.
During the time Van Leeuwenhoek was alive it was not common to find many places that made optical lenses so Van Leeuwenhoek was left to ground his own and during his time alive he ground over 500 optical lenses. He also created over 400 different types of microscopes, only nine of which still exist today. With silver or copper metal frames holding hand-ground lenses you’d think he’d make a lot of money but sadly he didn’t since during his time alive microscopes where only seen as toys to scientists.