298 BRIEF HISTORY OF BACTERIOLOGY UP TO 1881 



spectacle lenses, then an important industry in Delft, 

 Holland, where he lived, and did a great deal of experimental 

 work in this line, mainly for his oAvn enjoyment. Finally he 

 succeeded in making a lens so powerful that he could see 

 in water and various infusions very minute living bodies 

 never before observed. Leeuwenhoek contributed 112 papers 

 to the Royal Society of Great Britain, the first in 1673, 

 many of them accompanied by such accurate descriptions 



Fig. 169. — Leeuwenhoek's microscope. A is the simple biconvex lens held 

 firmly in place. In front of this is the small table, B, with the support, C, 

 on the tip of which the object to be examined was held. This support could 

 be brought nearer to or removed further away from the lens and held firmly 

 in place by the screw D. E is a second screw for raising or lowering the 

 entire table. A concave mirror that Leeuwenhoek sometimes used to focus 

 more light on the object under examination, is shown at the right. 



and drawings, for example a paper submitted September 12, 

 1683, that there is no doubt that he really saw bacteria and 

 was the first to do so (Fig. 170). Rightly may he be styled 

 "The Father of Bacteriology," if not of the microscope. He 

 says in one paper, "With the greatest astonishment I 

 observed that everj^where through the material I was 

 examining w^ere distributed animalcules of the most micro- 

 scopic dimness which moved themselves about in a remark- 



