INTRODUCTION 11 



nized as the father of protozoology. Grinding lenses himself, 

 Leeuwenhoek made more than four hundred simple microscopes, in- 

 cluding one which, it is said, had a magnification of 270 times 

 (Harting). Among the many things he discovered were various Pro- 

 tozoa. According to Dobell (1932), Leeuwenhoek saw in 1674 for the 

 first time free-living Protozoa in fresh water. Among them, he 

 observed bodies "green in the middle, and before and behind white," 

 which Dobell interprets were Euglena. Between 1674 and 1716 he 

 observed numerous microscopic organisms which he communicated 

 to the Royal Society of London and which, as Dobell considered, 

 were Vorticella, Stylonychia, Carchesium, Volvox, Haematococcus, 

 Coleps, Kerona, Anthophysis, Elphidium, Polytoma, etc. According 

 to Dobell, Huygens gave in 1678 "unmistakable descriptions of 

 Chilodon(ella), Paramecium, Astasia and Vorticella, all found in in- 

 fusions." 



Colpoda was seen by Bonanni (1691) and Harris (1696) rediscov- 

 ered Euglena. In 1718 there appeared the first treatise on micro- 

 scopic organisms, particularly of Protozoa, by Joblot who empha- 

 sized the non-existence of abiogenesis by using boiled hay-infusions 

 in which no Infusoria developed without exposure to the atmosphere. 

 This experiment confirmed that of Redi who, some forty years be- 

 fore, had made his well-known experiments by excluding flies from 

 meat. Joblot illustrated, according to Woodruff (1937), Paramecium, 

 the slipper animalcule, with the first identifiable figure. Trembley 

 (1745) studied division in some ciliates, including probably Para- 

 mecium, which generic name was coined by Hill in 1752. Noctiluca 

 w^as first described by Baker (1753). 



Rosel von Rosenhoff (1755) observed an organism, possibly either 

 Pelomyxa carolineyisis Wilson (Chaos chaos Linnaeus (Schaeffer, 

 1926)) or a mycetozoan (Mast and Johnson, 1931), which he called 

 "der kleine Proteus," and also Vorticella, Stentor, and Volvox. Wris- 

 berg (1764) coined the term "Infusoria" (Dujardin; Woodruff). By 

 using the juice of geranium, Ellis (1770) caused the extrusion of the 

 'fins' (trichocysts) in Paramecium. Eichhorn (1783) observed the 

 heliozoan, Actinosphaerium, which now bears his name. O. F. Miiller 

 described Ceratium a little later and published two works on the In- 

 fusoria (1773, 1786). Although he included unavoidably some Meta- 

 zoa and Protophyta in his monographs, some of his descriptions and 

 figures of Ciliata were so well done that they are of value even at the 

 present time. 



At the beginning of the nineteenth century the cylcosis in Para- 

 mecium was brought to light by Gruithuisen. Goldfuss (1817) coined 



