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The Development of The Microscope

The development of the microscope began with the Assyrians using glass spheres to magnify objects before Christ. In the 2nd century CE, Ptolemy wrote about magnification and refraction using lenses and glass spheres. Lenses were not widely used until around 1300 with the invention of spectacles. In the late 16th century, Hans Jansen and his son Zacharias invented the compound microscope. Five microscopists in the 17th century profoundly impacted biology, including Marcello Malpighi and Antonie van Leeuwenhoek. Malpighi conducted extensive animal and plant studies and was the first to describe various internal structures. Van Leeuwenhoek achieved high magnifications using single lenses and discovered

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40 views

The Development of The Microscope

The development of the microscope began with the Assyrians using glass spheres to magnify objects before Christ. In the 2nd century CE, Ptolemy wrote about magnification and refraction using lenses and glass spheres. Lenses were not widely used until around 1300 with the invention of spectacles. In the late 16th century, Hans Jansen and his son Zacharias invented the compound microscope. Five microscopists in the 17th century profoundly impacted biology, including Marcello Malpighi and Antonie van Leeuwenhoek. Malpighi conducted extensive animal and plant studies and was the first to describe various internal structures. Van Leeuwenhoek achieved high magnifications using single lenses and discovered

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nikita bajpai
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The development of the microscope

The magnifying power of segments of glass spheres was known to


the Assyrians before the time of Christ; during the 2nd century CE,
Claudius Ptolemy, an astronomer, mathematician, and geographer
at Alexandria, wrote a treatise on optics in which he discussed the
phenomena of magnification and refraction as related to
such lenses and to glass spheres filled with water. Despite that
knowledge, however, glass lenses were not used extensively until
around 1300 (an anonymous person invented spectacles for the
improvement of vision probably in the late 1200s). That invention
aroused curiosity concerning the property of lenses to magnify, and
in the 16th century several papers were written about such devices.
Then, in the late 16th century, the Dutch optician Hans Jansen and
his son Zacharias invented the compound microscope. The utility of
that instrument in the biological sciences, however, was not realized
until the following century. Following subsequent technological
improvements in the instrument and the development of a more-
liberal attitude toward scientific research, five microscopists
emerged who were to have a profound affect on biology: Marcello
Malpighi, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, Jan Swammerdam, Nehemiah
Grew, and Robert Hooke.
Malpighi’s animal and plant studies
The Italian biologist and physician Marcello Malpighi conducted
extensive studies in animal anatomy and histology (the microscopic
study of the structure, composition, and function of tissues). He was
the first to describe the inner (malpighian) layer of the skin, the
papillae of the tongue, the outer part (cortex) of the cerebral area of
the brain, and the red blood cells. He wrote a detailed monograph
on the silkworm; a further major contribution was a description of
the development of the chick, beginning with the 24-hour stage. In
addition to those and other animal studies, Malpighi made detailed
investigations in plant anatomy. He systematically described the
various parts of plants, such as bark, stem, roots, and seeds, and
discussed processes such as germination and gall formation. Many
of Malpighi’s drawings of plant anatomy remained unintelligible to
botanists until the structures were rediscovered in the 19th century.
Although Malpighi was not a technical innovator, he does exemplify
the functioning of the educated 17th-century mind, which, together
with curiosity and patience, resulted in many advances in biology.
The discovery of “animalcules”
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, a Dutchman who spent most of his life
in Delft, sold cloth for a living. As a young man, however, he became
interested in grinding lenses, which he mounted in gold, silver, or
copper plates. Indeed, he became so obsessed with the idea of
making perfect lenses that he neglected his business and was
ridiculed by his family and neighbours. Using single lenses rather
than compound ones (a system of two or more), Leeuwenhoek
achieved magnifications from 40 to 270 diameters, a remarkable
feat for hand-ground lenses. Among his most-conspicuous
observations was the discovery in 1675 of the existence in stagnant
water and prepared infusions of many protozoans, which he
called animalcules. He observed the connections between the
arteries and veins; gave particularly fine accounts of the
microscopic structure of muscle, the lens of the eye, the teeth, and
other structures; and recognized bacteria of different shapes,
postulating that they must be on the order of 25 times as small as
the red blood cell. Because that is the approximate size of bacteria,
it indicates that his observations were accurate.

microscope by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek


Microscope made by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek.
Photos.com/Thinkstock
Leeuwenhoek’s fame was consolidated when he confirmed the
observations of a student that male seminal
fluid contains spermatozoa. Furthermore, he discovered
spermatozoa in other animals as well as in the female tract
following copulation; the latter destroyed the idea held by others
that the entire future development of an animal is centred in the
egg, and that sperm merely induce a “vapour,” which penetrates
the womb and effects fertilization. Although that theory
of preformation, as it is called, continued to survive for some time
longer, Leeuwenhoek initiated its eventual demise.

Leeuwenhoek’s animalcules raised some disquieting thoughts in the


minds of his contemporaries. The theory of spontaneous
generation, held by the ancient world and passed down
unquestioned, was now being criticized. Christiaan Huygens, a
scientific friend of Leeuwenhoek, hypothesized that the little
animals might be small enough to float in the air and, on reaching
water, reproduce themselves. At the time, however, criticism of
spontaneous generation went no farther.

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