Anton’s Great Discovery

Anton’s Great Discovery

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Anton Van Leeuwenhoek was a Dutch cloth merchant. His life began to change after he got his first microscope in 1653. It was a very simple microscope. It had a lens in an upright stand. It could make small things look large. It was handy for looking closely at cloth.

Soon, Anton felt a longing to build a more powerful microscope. He dreamed of using it to make an important scientific discovery. He wanted to become famous. Three decades later, he did.

For many years, Anton experimented with microscopes and lenses. Eventually he constructed a very powerful microscope. If he had sold the concept  to others, it would have made him very rich. However, Anton refrained from surrendering his secret to anyone. Instead, he wanted to use it to become famous. So he used his secret microscope to study the natural world.

One day he was looking at saliva from his mouth with the microscope. In the saliva, he saw numerous tiny particles. Some of them were moving! He thought that the particles were tiny organisms. So he isolated them from each other and studied each one carefully. Then he classified them into different categories. Some were round. Others were long and had tails. All were alive.

Anton was so excited. He knew he could become famous now. He was the first person to see these tiny organisms. So he drew diagrams of the organisms and sent them to a group of scientists in London. The scientists were sophisticated men who did not believe tiny, animate organisms could live in our mouths. Anton made a plea for them to come to Holland to see the organisms with their own eyes. The men took a ferry to Holland and met Anton. They performed a careful  review of his work, and they conceded that he had made a worthwhile discovery. Anton Van Leeuwenhoek had discovered bacteria. After decades of hard work, he had become famous.