“ce 
378 LEEUWENHOEK AND HIS “LITTLE ANIMALS”’ 
Latin—justly remarks (1930, p. 22) that it “is surprising to 
find Linné, 30 years after Leeuwenhoek’s death, placing in 
the same class spermatozoa and the ‘ethereal clouds in the 
time of flowering’’’; and he and others have been puzzled by 
Linné’s “ aethereus nimbus”’ (e, supra). But it is probably, I 
think, merely a reference to the anonymous English author 
of 1677." 
Linnaeus himself doubted whether all the then known 
protozoa” and bacteria (as we now call them) might not really 
be stages in the development of fungi, and he questioned their 
relation to diseases. Similar vague suggestions were mooted 
in the dissertations of some of his pupils (Bostrém, 1757; 
Nyander, 1757; Roos, 1767): but what Linnaeus himself 
believed I cannot discover. I think he had no definite ideas ; 
for though he was certainly not blind to the possibility that 
‘“microbes’”’? may cause diseases, he was also sceptical and 
unable to make up his mind. In his own thesis for his degree 
(1735) he argued that “intermittent fevers” are caused by 
drinking water contaminated with clay, though in 1757 he 
apparently approved Bostrém’s thesis contending that the 
cause was “bad air” or faulty sanitation. Yet at the same 
time he envisaged the existence of “exanthemata viva” 
(cf. Nyander), and ten years later (cf. Syst. Nat., and Roos, 
1767) was seemingly still sitting on the fence. In my view, 
Linné and his pupils never understood Leeuwenhoek’s “ little 
animals,’ and all their attempts at systematization merely 
created confusion. ‘Their works are of great historic interest, 
however, in showing how far professional biologists and medicos 
had profited by Leeuwenhoek’s “amateur” labours a century 
after he announced his first discoveries. 
The only other authors of this period who call for passing 
notice here are three Germans—of very different merits. First, 
Résel von Rosenhof,’ a miniature-painter who published some 
admirable descriptions and figures of protozoa in 1755: secondly, 
1 Quoted on p. 373 supra. 
2 The name “ Protozoa” was first used by Goldfuss (1817): but his 
group so named included not only the “ Infusoria” but also “ Lithozoa”’, 
’ 
‘“ Phytozoa’’, and “ Medusae”’. 
3 August Johann Résel von Rosenhof (1705-1759). His life by Kleemann, 
his son-in-law, is prefixed to the fourth volume of his Insecten-Belustigungen. 
Cf. also Miall (1912), p. 293 sq. 
