Bacteria from the Beijerinck Collection

Abstract

In these days of coordinated multiple slide projectors, super-powerful overhead projectors and even direct transmission from computers onto screens, the peace of the lecture theatre of the last century has its attractions—no electronic hum, no bulbs to blow at the wrong moment and no slides to get stuck or melt. The problem then was more fundamental—how did you illustrate your lectures?One answer was commercially produced posters. There seems to have been a number of such publishers, mainly in Germany. If the collection in Delft is representative, the set generally included wall charts (up to several square metres in size) and either a simple index or a book with quite detailed text. However, if you were a pioneering microbiology professor, the commercial suppliers were not specialized enough.Martinus Willem Beijerinck, the first Professor of Microbiology at Delft University of Technology, was fortunate in that his sister, Henriette Wilhelmina, was a talented artist (and qualified art teacher) who seems to have spent much of her life producing very beautiful paintings to illustrate his work (although a small number of paintings in the collection are signed by him, rather than her). These paintings cover a wide spectrum of subjects, from plant galls and plant anatomy, through yeasts and fungi, to bacteria and the fish that carry bioluminescent bacteria. The illustrations shown in Fig. 1Fig. 1 Fig. 2Fig. 2 Fig. 3Fig. 3 Fig. 4Fig. 4 Fig. 5Fig. 5 are examples from the bacterial part of the collection. They are all watercolours and are approximately A0 in size. None of the illustrations shown here are dated, but they must originate between 1888, when Bacillus (or Bacterium) radicicola was first described, and 1921, when Prof. Beijerinck retired. Similar paintings (in terms of format and type of paper) in the collection are dated in the 1890s and 1900s.Fig. 1Bacillus (now Bradyrhizobium) radicicola[1xSee all References][1], isolated from the root nodules of Vicia faba.View Large Image | Download PowerPoint SlideFig. 2Photobacterium luminosum[2xSee all References][2], a species from the North Sea whose last appearance in the literature seems to have been in the Index Bergeyana. Its name does not appear, even as a synonym, on the current lists of the genus Photobacterium. The arrows indicate the direction of motility shown by the cells.View Large Image | Download PowerPoint SlideFig. 3Bacillus cyaneo-fuscus[3xSee all References][3], another organism that seems to have vanished into the mists of time. The illustration shows the growth of the organism, and resultant black colouring, in a piece of Edam cheese. It was also isolated from black ink.View Large Image | Download PowerPoint SlideFig. 4Sarcina ventriculi[4xSee all References][4], a species that still retains this name today. The blue colour shown on one of the clumps was produced, according to Beijerinck, by a reaction between the cell walls and a mixture of zinc chloride and iodine.View Large Image | Download PowerPoint SlideFig. 5Azotobacter chroococcum[5xSee all References][5]. The top section shows cells from a 2-day liquid culture, the left-hand section shows cells from a 3-day liquid culture, and the right-hand section shows a 3-day old plate culture. This is the microorganism that Beijerinck claimed to have named in recognition of the changing century, because he realized he had a new isolate `as the bells rang out to welcome the new century'.View Large Image | Download PowerPoint SlideAll the papers in the Reference list also appear in the Collected Works (Verzamelde Geschriften van M.W. Beijerinck), published in Delft in 1921 to mark Beijerinck's 70th birthday. As these volumes seem to be more readily available in libraries than the original journals, the volume and page numbers for the collected works (cw) are given in brackets after the relevant reference. Figures reproduced with permission from the Kluyver Laboratory of Delft University of Technology.