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Who invented the first microscope?

Galileo developed the first microscope-like gadgets. Later, a similar type of device was improved by father and son Hans and Zahuri Janssen. None of them used these devices for medical purposes. Antoni  van Leeuwenhoek was a practical man and was involved in the trade of canvases. He used a magnifying glass to control the quality of the canvas. Though he was considered a dilettante and an amateur in his time, his scientific accomplishments are remarkable in both the technique and the macrobiology which he has founded.

He had no scientific education, but he had a sense of technique and drawing and an extraordinary gift of observation. For the purpose of testing the quality of the fabric, he started to work with magnifying glass. Later he improved lens quality and constructed a device that would be unsurpassed for hundreds of years. Leeuwenhoek hid his finding, and did not let no one know how to make or use it except him. The way he connected the lens was unknown even after his death.

Using his hand-made microscope, he was the first man to observe single-body organisms, muscle tissue, bacteria and blood flow in the capillaries (small blood vessels). After elaborating his method in the research of the microscopic world, Leeuwenhoek came to the English Royal Society. He soon began to send copies of his observations to the Society and his observations were recorded in the Royal Society magazine: Philosophical Reports.

Leeuwenhoek watched everything he could, he found in a drop of water infusoria – small animals. He saw erythrocytes, but he did not understand them. Leeuwenhoek is considered the first researcher who saw protozoa, bacteria (1676) and red blood cells (1674-1684.).

This served as the basis of new scientific discipline – microbiology.

Photo credit: Pixabay.com

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Written by lejla1311