374 LEEUWENHOEK AND HIS ‘‘ LITTLE ANIMALS ”’ 
Agents of Disease," and yet could both have ignored all 
Leeuwenhoek’s discoveries entirely. His work undoubtedly 
has an important bearing on the history of both these 
subjects. 
Notwithstanding such present-day neglect, Leeuwenhoek’s 
discoveries were utilized by contemporary theorists. I may 
mention particularly Benjamin Marten,’ who published in 
1720 (three years before Leeuwenhoek died) a most curious 
treatise to which attention has recently been directed by Singer 
(1911). In this book Marten, by assuming that tuberculosis 
is caused by invisible “ animalcula”’ like those discovered by 
Leeuwenhoek, develops a theory of the pathogenesis of this 
disease remarkably similar to current conceptions. In many a 
passage, if one substitutes “ Bacillus tuberculosis” for 
“animalcula”’ his statements are in close agreement with the 
views expressed in modern bacteriological and pathological 
works. As a prognostication, or even as a mere tour de force, 
Marten’s book is notable: but he himself never saw the 
tubercle bacillus, and his writings had no influence on the 
history of bacteriology. 
In recent times a claim to recognition has also been made 
for the French physician J.-B. Goiffon (1658-1730), of Lyons. 
Molliére (1886) calls him “wn précurseur des théories 
microbiennes”’ on the strength of a dissertation on the 
plague which he published in 1722. In this Goiffon 
propounds the theory that plague is caused by an invisible 
virus (vénin)—probably some kind of “insect” “—which floats 
in the air and penetrates into the blood either through the 
pores of the skin or else through the mouth or nose. But 
Goiffon never attempted to see such “insects” himself, and 
makes no mention of the real “animalcules”’ already well 
known at that date (through the discoveries of Leeuwenhoek 
1 Grober (1912). This German writer’s ignorance of L.’s existence was 
possibly feigned, and due to a false patriotism: for though his book bears 
evidence of considerable learning, its author had apparently never even 
heard of Pasteur also. 
2 Marten was a London physician about whom very little seems to be 
known. His book is excessively rare, and I am indebted to Dr Charles 
Singer for the loan of his own copy—the only one which I have studied. 
There is another, however, in the British Museum. 
3 Tn one place he actually conceives of it as possessing wings ! 
