The changing appraisal of the microbe.

Abstract

First of all I wish to express my profound gratitude towards the Council of the Royal Society for their invitation to deliver here the third Leeuwenhoek lecture; highly appreciate the great honour involved. I feel the more flattered by the nvitation, because in the preceding years the task of delivering the lecture has been entrusted to two eminent British scientists, Sir Paul Fildes and Professor C. H. Andrewes, so that I am the first lecturer from overseas. Pondering on the motives which have led to me being chosen as such I could, of course, not escape he conclusion that the geographical location of my chair may well have been the decisive factor in this case. For it certainly adds a zest to a celebration in honour of the founder of microbiology, if the orator is a representative of this science, lbeit a humble one, living in the same town in which this founder made all his startling discoveries. I must, however, at once dispel your illusion that I should be able to throw any fresh light on the personality or on the scientific work of my great fellow-townsman. For I am fully aware that the scientist Leeuwenhoek belongs both to my country and to the Royal Society, and also of late much attention has been devoted to him from each of the two sides. And then I know that I cannot add anything essential to the admirable and vivid picture which the late Clifford Dobell has drawn of the father of microbiology and protozoology. However, since the appearance of Dobell’s work of love twenty years ago several penetrating studies on Leeuwenhoek’s observations—I need only mention those made by Professor F. J. Cole—have been published, whilst also additional data regarding Leeuwenhoek’s life-history have come to light. All this has most appropriately been taken into account in the excellent Leeuwenhoek biography which Dr A. Schierbeek of the Hague has recently published. Because, unlike Dobell, the latter author did not confine himself to Leeuwenhoek’s merits for the discovery of ‘invisible life’, Schierbeek’s book also deals in a harmonious way with Leeuwenhoek’s contribu­tions to microchemistry, entomology, zoology, botany, medicine and ecology. Since these contributions are both manifold and important, one should keep in mind that for the father of microbiology this science is merely one facet of his multifarious activities.