Leeuwenhoek's observations relating to animal population, though scattered through many letters written during a period of over forty years, when seen in toto, were important contributions to the subject now known as animal demography. He maintained enough contact with other scientists to have received encouragement and some helpful suggestions, but the language barrier and the novelty of doing microscopic work forced him to be resourceful, inventive, and original. His multifarious investigations impinged upon population biology before he discovered a direct (...) interest in it. He devised methods for estimating numbers of animalcules, and then he went on to estimate the population of the world. His interest in reproduction was an important avenue by which he approached the subject of reproductive capacity. Other important approaches were his studies of growth, longevity, and life histories. He discovered relationships between aspects of the life history, longevity, and reproductive capacity of several species of insects, notably calanders, scavenger flies, crane flies, aphids, and lice. An important feature of these investigations were the arithmetical calculations which he made of reproductive potentials. In spite of several limitations, these calculations were an important innovation to the study of animal population. In his later years, his investigations came more and more within the sphere of ecology. He made the first significant observations on food chains. It is especially interesting that fish were the subject of these observations, because it was not until the latter half of the nineteenth century that scientists realized that fish ultimately depend upon phytoplankton.These accomplishments did not pass unnoticed. Although Leeuwenhoek never synthesized his scattered observations concerning population, his originality and perception were appreciated by outstanding biologists of the eighteenth century. The important discussions of population biology by Réaumur, Buffon, and Bonnet all derived inspiration and assistance from the writings of Leeuwenhoek.73 This ingenious Fellow of the Royal Society, “by detecting through diligent application and scrutiny the mysteries of Nature and the secrets of natural philosophy,”74 became one of the founders of animal demography. (shrink)

This paper examines how the production, content and reception of the film Antony van Leeuwenhoek (1924) influenced the historical framing of science. The film features microcinematography by the pioneering Dutch filmmaker Jan Cornelis Mol (1891–1954), and was part of a dynamic process of commemorating seventeenth-century microscopy and bacteriology through an early instance of visual re-creation – a new way of using scientific material heritage, and of enabling audiences to supposedly observe the world of microscopic organisms in just the same (...) way as the Dutch scientist Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723) had observed them for himself. Knowledge transfer concerning material culture, around both historical and contemporary instruments, was the determining factor in the microcinematography practices applied in this film. The production and experience of the film also mirrored the seventeenth-century process of experimentation, playing with optics, and visualizing an entirely new and unknown world. Unlike other biographical science films of the 1920s, Antony van Leeuwenhoek featured abstract depictions of time and movement that allowed the audience to connect the history of science with microcinematography, contributing to the memory of Van Leeuwenhoek's work as the origins of bacteriology in the process. (shrink)

This article provides, for the first time, an overview of all images (drawings and prints) sent by the Dutch microscopist Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723) to the Royal Society during their fifty-year long correspondence. Analyses of the images and close reading of the letters have led to an identification of three periods in which Leeuwenhoek worked together with artists. The first period (1673–1689) is characterized by the work of several draughtsmen as well as Leeuwenhoek’s own improving attempts to (...) depict his observations. In the second period (1692–1712) Leeuwenhoek worked together with one unknown draughtsman, while the work in the third period (1713–1723) can now be attributed to the young draughtsman Willem vander Wilt. This article also shows how Leeuwenhoek did not only rely on draughtsmen for the depiction of his own observations, but rather, how he worked together with them in his workshop to observe, confirm, and witness microscopic experiments, replicating the collaborative working methods of the Royal Society in Delft. (shrink)

SUMMARYThis paper discusses the scientific instruments made and used by the microscopist Antony van Leeuwenhoek. The immediate cause of our study was the discovery of an overlooked document from the Delft archive: an inventory of the possessions that were left in 1745 after the death of Leeuwenhoek's daughter Maria. This list sums up which tools and scientific instruments Leeuwenhoek possessed at the end of his life, including his famous microscopes. This information, combined with the results of earlier (...) historical research, gives us new insights about the way Leeuwenhoek began his lens grinding and how eventually he made his best lenses. It also teaches us more about Leeuwenhoek's work as a surveyor and a wine gauger.A further investigation of the 1747 sale of Leeuwenhoek's 531 single lens microscopes has not only led us to the identification of nearly all buyers, but also has provided us with some explanation about why only a dozen of this large number of microscopes has survived. (shrink)

I takt med at det naturhistoriske vidensideal i løbet af 1600-tallet i højere grad blev knyttet til observationer, eksperimenter og andre former for direkte kontakt med naturens fænomener, fremkom den naturhistoriske ekspert som en vigtig videnskabelig aktør. I denne artikel viser jeg, hvordan den hollandske mikroskopist Antoni van Leeuwenhoek indgik som ekspert i to umiddelbart væsensforskellige netværk, nemlig det engelske videnskabelige selskab Royal Society og det Nederlandske Ostindiske Handelskompagni (VOC). Hvor Royal Society havde som sit erklærede formål at skabe (...) ny, eksperimentel viden om naturen, var VOC’s formål at tjene penge til sin bestyrelse på baggrund af aggressiv ekspansion af koloniale aktiviteter i Sydøstasien. Leeuwenhoeks evner indenfor mikroskopi gjorde, at Royal Societymedlemmerne sendte ham observationsopgaver og endda objekter, som han kunne undersøge gennem sine mikroskoper. På samme måde fik Leeuwenhoek adgang til VOC-officerers kister med koloniale frø, og han blev bedt om at undersøge deres krydderilagre med det formål at skabe bedre viden om de koloniale materialers reproduktionscyklusser. Ved at studere Leeuwenhoeks rolle som ekspert i disse to netværk argumenterer jeg for en porøs distinktion mellem kommerciel og videnskabelig aktivitet. (shrink)

Tato studie se věnuje rané fázi mikroskopického zkoumání přírody Antoni van Leeuwenhoeka, které představil ve své korespondenci členům Royal Society. Studie se zaměřuje na období od navázání styku s Royal Society až do roku 1680, kdy byl Leeuwenhoek zvolen členem společnosti. Z metodologického hlediska studie uplatňuje na Leeuwenhoekovy dopisy členům Royal Society přístup, který představili autoři Steven Shapin a Simon Schaffer v knize Leviathan and the Air-Pump. Pokouší se zjistit, jestli se v Leeuwenhoekových dopisech objevují tři strategie,, které Shapin (...) a Schaffer přisoudili Robertu Boylovi. Studie potvrzuje, že závěry britských autorů platí i pro jiné vědce. (shrink)

It is beyond the scope of this paper to describe in detail the rise to popularity of the emboîtement theories during the last decades of the seventeenth century.51 Eventually the theories did gain great influence, but some points emerging from the above discussion indicate that the rise to popularity was not, perhaps, quite as rapid as has sometimes been assumed.52 Although the earlier preformation theories were sometimes regarded as the ancestors of the later ideas,53 there was little intellectual continuity between (...) the two movements, based as they were upon such divergent motivations. Nor can the preformation theories be regarded as the origin of the belief that a miniature can actually be seen within the egg, since the existence of metamorphosis as a perfectly valid alternative to epigenesis meant that the work of Malpighi and others, usually described as “preformationist,” was not always taken in this latter sense at the time it was published. The pre-existence theories developed in response to particular philosophical problems, and were themselves responsible for the reinterpretation of the observations. In France, the thoughts of Malebranche and Perrault were probably already exerting influence before their written support for pre-existence appeared, but elsewhere the idea was not taken up so rapidly, and ovism, for instance, could develop without associating itself with emboîtement. Malpighi always seems to have remained opposed to pre-existence,54 but by the last decade of the century, the idea had become sufficiently powerful to influence Ray and Garden in Britain, and was receiving support from as influential a thinker as Leibniz.55 But Garden and Hartsoeker were responsible for dividing emboîtement between two schools, just as the concept itself was becoming popular. The work of both Malpighi and Leeuwenhoek served as the basis of the animalculist version, illustrating how the microscopic discoveries served as much to disrupt the intellectual development of the emboîtement concept as they did to promote it. *** DIRECT SUPPORT *** A8402051 00002. (shrink)

In the seventeenth century the microscope opened up a new world of observation, and, according to Catherine Wilson, profoundly revised the thinking of scientists and philosophers alike. The interior of nature, once closed off to both sympathetic intuition and direct perception, was now accessible with the help of optical instruments. The microscope led to a conception of science as an objective, procedure-driven mode of inquiry and renewed interest in atomism and mechanism. Focusing on the earliest forays into microscopical research, from (...) 1620 to 1720, this book provides us with both a compelling technological history and a lively assessment of the new knowledge that helped launch philosophy into the modern era. Wilson argues that the discovery of the microworld--and the apparent role of living animalcula in generation, contagion, and disease--presented metaphysicians with the task of reconciling the ubiquity of life with human-centered theological systems. It was also a source of problems for philosophers concerned with essences, qualities, and the limits of human knowledge, whose positions are echoed in current debates about realism and instrument-mediated knowledge. Covering the contributions of pioneering microscopists (Leeuwenhoek, Swammerdam, Malpighi, Grew, and Hooke) and the work of philosophers interested in the microworld (Bacon, Descartes, Leibniz, Malebranche, Locke, and Berkeley), she challenges historians who view the abstract sciences as the sole catalyst of the Scientific Revolution as she stresses the importance of observational and experimental science to the modern intellect. (shrink)

In recent years a certain emphasis has been put by some scholars on Leibniz’s concern about empirical sciences and the relations between such concern and the development of his mature metaphysical system. In this paper I focus on Leibniz’s interest for the microscope and the astonishing discoveries that such instrument made possible in the field of the life sciences during the last part of the Seventeenth century. The observation of physical bodies carried out by the “magnifying glasses” revealed a matter (...) swarming everywhere with life and activity, contrary to the cartesian and atomistic view of matter as something sterile and passive. Moreover, the discovery of uncountable complete “animalcula” living in the smallest drop of water provided evidence for the idea of the preformation of every organism. During his lifetime, Leibniz was extremely watchful about the new microscopical discoveries and came into contact with some of the major “observers” of his time, such as Hooke, Leeuwenhoek, Swammerdam and Malpighi. Relying both on some passages in Leibniz’s texts and on recent critical studies, I will argue that important aspects of his metaphysics have been strongly affected by the empirical observation of the “invisible world” which the microscope made possible. In the last part of the paper I show how the concept of “preformation”, originally drawn from the context of the life sciences, comes to play in Leibnizʼs philosophy a very general role, going far beyond the scope of biology and shaping important aspects of his overall philosophical system. (shrink)

It is certainly true that in early modern thought the emergence of a new science changed the image of the universe in a mechanistic way. It must be considered, though, that most of the main protagonists of this revolution (Kepler, Newton, Leibniz, ‘biologists’ like Leeuwenhoek, Hartsoeker, Hooke, Malpighi, Redi, etc.) still continued to consider the importance and the utility of a finalistic explanation of natural phenomena. Concepts like “function”, “self-organization”, “organism” have roots in early modern thought: not only from (...) a linguistic and semantic point of view. They were the basis of an epistemology in which different kinds of categories are strictly related. The aim of the paper is to take into account the relevance of the mechanical explanation of natural phenomena in Leibniz’s thought and at the same time to highlight the polarization between mechanical explanations and finalistic consideration that emerges in his philosophy. The specific aim of the paper is to analyze and to develop this kind of dialectic between “teleology” and "mechanism", with particular reference to the concept of “living being”. (shrink)

In his philosophical writings, Leibniz regularly quotes Steno, Malpighi, Swammerdam and Leeuwenhoek not only to defend the preformationistic hypothesis, but also to praise their scientific methods as exemplary: he emphasizes the accuracy of their observations, the usefulness of their analogies or their skill at finding some 'series' in natural transformations. We will first analyse some epistemological features of the scientific writings of these four naturalists, which both delineate their 'mechanism' and meet several Leibnizian postulates, namely transspecific analogy grounded on (...) the uniformity of nature, anatomical resolution requiring a microscope to find the connection between phenomena, and finally the economy of postulates. Then, we will question the scientific implications of theoretical choices which are common to Leibniz's Protogaea and Steno's, Malpighi's and Swammerdam's writings about natural transformations. With this scientific background we can see how some mechanical assumptions shed light on Leibnizian conception of the continuity of thoughts. (shrink)

Over 300 years ago the father of microscopy, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, observed dried rotifers “coming back to life” upon rehydration. Since then, scientists have been fascinated by the enduring mystery of how certain organisms survive losing essentially drying out completely. Historically sugars, such as the disaccharide trehalose, have been viewed as major functional mediators of desiccation tolerance. However, some desiccation tolerant organisms do not produce this sugar, hinting that additional mediators, and potentially novel mechanisms exist. It has become apparent (...) that a common theme among such organisms is the production and use of intrinsically disordered proteins to mediate survival in this dry state. However, the basic biology of these proteins – which unlike globular proteins lack persistent three-dimensional structure – is poorly understood, as are the functional mechanisms utilized by these enigmatic proteins that allow them to mediate desiccation tolerance. We purpose that probing the biochemical and biophysical nature of stress-related IDPs will provide mechanistic insights into these fascinating proteins. Remarkably, organisms from every kingdom of life can survive losing nearly all their intracellular water. A hallmark of desiccation tolerance is the use of intrinsically disordered proteins, but how IDPs contribute to tolerance is poorly understood. Here, we discuss possible mechanisms and avenues for studying these enigmatic proteins. (shrink)

It is well known how Leibniz turned his attention to a large number of domains in an attempt to demonstrate the universal interconnectedness of things. This essay aims to show the relationship between two areas of knowledge studied by Leibniz: gnoseology and biology. In particular, there is a close correspondence between the doctrine of innate ideas and that of the organism. The former are in fact understood as the constitutive elements of a layered mind and can be brought to consciousness (...) through reminiscence. In contrast to the Platonic tradition, innate ideas are not the trace of notions acquired in previous lives, but are the result of a metamorphosis of living organisms. This consideration leads precisely to the Leibniz’s conception of the organism, influenced by the contemporary microscopic observation of van Leeuwenhoek and Malpighi and by the discovery of ‘spermatic animals'. In this sense, the idea of a pre-formed organism, subject to growth and contraction, is analogous to the peculiar conception of memory as a constitutive pre-configuration of the mind. (shrink)

It is certainly true that in early modern thought the emergence of a new science changed the image of the universe in a mechanistic way. It must be considered, though, that most of the main protagonists of this revolution (Kepler, Newton, Leibniz, ‘biologists’ like Leeuwenhoek, Hartsoeker, Hooke, Malpighi, Redi, etc.) still continued to consider the importance and the utility of a finalistic explanation of natural phenomena. Concepts like “function”, “self-organization”, “organism” have roots in early modern thought: not only from (...) a linguistic and semantic point of view. They were the basis of an epistemology in which different kinds of categories are strictly related. Aim of the paper is to take into account the relevance of the mechanical explanation of natural phenomena in Leibniz’s thought and at the same time to highlight the polarization between mechanical explanations and finalistic consideration that emerges in his philosophy. The specific aim of the paper is to analyze and to develop this kind of dialectic between “teleology” and "mechanism", with particular reference to the concept of “living being”. (shrink)

A special interest in optics among various seventeenth-century painters living in the Dutch city of Delft has intrigued historians, including art historians, for a long time. Equally, the impressive career of the Delft microscopist Antoni van Leeuwenhoek has been studied by many historians of science. However, it has never been investigated who, at that time, had access to the mathematical and optical knowledge necessary for the impressive achievements of these Delft practitioners. We have tried to gain insight into Delft (...) as a ‘node’ of optical knowledge by following the careers of three minor local figures in early seventeenth-century Delft. We argue that through their work, products, discussions in the vernacular and exchange of skills, rather than via learned publications, these practitioners constituted a foundation on which the later scientific and artistic achievements of other Delft citizens were built. Our Delft case demonstrates that these practitioners were not simple and isolated craftsmen; rather they were crucial components in a network of scholars, savants, painters and rich virtuosi. Decades before Vermeer made his masterworks, or Van Leeuwenhoek started his famous microscopic investigations, the intellectual atmosphere and artisanal knowledge in this city centred on optical topics. (shrink)

It is certainly true that in early modern thought the emergence of a new science changed the image of the universe in a mechanistic way. It must be considered, though, that most of the main protagonists of this revolution (Kepler, Newton, Leibniz, ‘biologists’ like Leeuwenhoek, Hartsoeker, Hooke, Malpighi, Redi, etc.) still continued to consider the importance and the utility of a finalistic explanation of natural phenomena. Concepts like “function”, “self-organization”, “organism” have roots in early modern thought: not only from (...) a linguistic and semantic point of view. They were the basis of an epistemology in which different kinds of categories are strictly related. The aim of the paper is to take into account the relevance of the mechanical explanation of natural phenomena in Leibniz’s thought and at the same time to highlight the polarization between mechanical explanations and finalistic consideration that emerges in his philosophy. The specific aim of the paper is to analyze and to develop this kind of dialectic between “teleology” and "mechanism", with particular reference to the concept of “living being”. (shrink)

The bulk of this valuable study provides us with a wealth of information on early microscopy: the construction and use of microscopes, attitudes towards such instruments and what they discovered, their use in theory construction. Wilson carefully analyzes the work of many persons working with microscopes, especially those we would call biologists, in their quest for an understanding of the generation of life. Well-known scientists such as Harvey, Leeuwenhoek, Malpighi, Grew, Boyle, and microscopists such as Hooke and Power are (...) presented along with many lesser known researchers. The author also discusses earlier figures such as Aristotle and Gassendi. The contribution of various philosophers, such as Descartes, Leibniz, Malebranche, Berkeley, Locke, to the development of the microscope are placed in historical context. (shrink)