Anton Van Leeuwenhoek the First Bacteriologist

As a lover of pure science, as a most industrious worker with the microscope, and as a prescient physiologist Leeuwenhoek is interesting to all those who study living nature, but by histologists and bacteriologists in particular his name will ever be regarded with that reverence which a bright example in science must always inspire. The man who first saw and described a micro-organism cannot fail to be interesting to us today seeing of what importance the microscope and its dependent science of bacteriology have become in modern life with their relations to applied medicine, pathology, surgery, public health, the arts, and commerce. The seed of this gigantic tree with its roots in all lands and its flowers culled under every clime was sown by the hand of a solitary worker without reward in a quiet little town on one of the canals of the great plain of Holland. 5,030 words, original print: 1921