AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Leeuwenhoek is universally acknowledged as the father of microbiology. He discovered both protists and bacteria [1]. More than being the first to see this unimagined world of ‘animalcules’, he was the first even to think of looking-certainly, the first with the power to see.

Detailed explanation-2: -Antonie van Leeuwenhoek drew this first recorded image, published in 1684, of bacteria when he observed plaque scrapings from his teeth through a microscope. It was almost two hundred years after this discovery of bacteria that Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch proved that some bacteria could cause disease.

Detailed explanation-3: -Van Leeuwenhoek is best known for his pioneering work in the field of microscopy and for his contributions toward the establishment of microbiology as a scientific discipline. Raised in Delft, in the Dutch Republic, van Leeuwenhoek worked as a draper in his youth and founded his own shop in 1654.

Detailed explanation-4: -Leeuwenhoek looked at animal and plant tissues, at mineral crystals and at fossils. He was the first to see microscopic foraminifera, which he described as “little cockles. . . no bigger than a coarse sand-grain.” He discovered blood cells, and was the first to see living sperm cells of animals.