Original version

BBC World Service South Asia

The Forum

Documentaries

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Discover world history, culture and ideas with today’s leading experts

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa Schedule

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

BBC World Service Australasia

BBC World Service Online

BBC World Service schedule for American satellite radio and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

BBC World Service

BBC World Service News Internet

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

BBC World Service West and Central Africa Schedule

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

BBC World Service East Asia

The Forum: Leeuwenhoek: The fabric seller who discovered bacteria

Leeuwenhoek's microscope (c/o Rijksmuseum Boerhaave)

18/07/2019 GMT

Leeuwenhoek: The fabric seller who discovered bacteria

BBC World Service - The Forum, Leeuwenhoek: The fabric seller who discovered bacteria

The life and work of Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, the Dutch pioneer of microscopy

How a humble Dutch merchant, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, became the first person to peer into a world of tiny creatures invisible to the naked eye.

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek opened up a whole new world to us; he was the first to observe bacteria and other microscopic lifeforms which could not be seen by the naked eye. He is now regarded as the father of microbiology and yet he had neither scientific training nor university education, and spent his life first as a linen merchant and then a civil servant in a small Dutch city. 

To understand quite how game-changing Leeuwenhoek’s discoveries were, you have to imagine a world where just about everyone on the planet could only see things that were within the range of unaided human eyesight. Magnifying glasses were the preserve of a privileged few, and other optical instruments, such as simple telescopes and microscopes, were rarer still. So it’s little wonder that Leeuwenhoek was met with disbelief when he claimed that he had seen bustling, vibrant lifeforms in what for everyone was just a drop of clear, pure water.

To find out how this extraordinarily curious Dutchman arrived at his discoveries, Rajan Datar is joined by Elisabeth Entjes who is one of the editors of Leeuwenhoek’s Collected Letters, Tiemen Cocquyt who as curator at the Boerhaave Museum of the history of science in Leiden has a special interest in Leeuwenhoek’s microscopes, and by biochemist and writer Nick Lane who is professor of Evolutionary Biochemistry at University College London.

(Photo: Antonie van Leeuwenhoek's microscope. Credit: Rijksmuseum Boerhaave)

Accessibility links

Programme Index

The Forum

Leeuwenhoek: The fabric seller who discovered bacteria

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC World Service South Asia

About BBC World Service