Hello, and Happy Saturday. In our Unearthed episodes, this week we talked about Anthony von Levin Hook's microscopes and lenses. It's been a bit since our episode on him came out. That was back on March twelve, and it's a fun one, I think, so I thought let's have it as a Saturday classic. Yep still features one of my favorite words of all times, animal fuels. Uh. And after this episode came out, we got several emails about Tracy's recollection of having a book as a child that used Barnacle Geese as an illustration of the idea of spontaneous generation, and some folks mentioned that this shows up in Susan Cooper's The Darkest Rising series. Others mentioned the seventeenth century The herbal Or General History of Plants by John Gerard. Neither of these was the book Tracy had as a kid, but we did think we'd mentioned them just the same. Yeah, I haven't managed to track down with that book actually was. I also forgot about it in the years that have passed since then. So enjoy everyone. Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frying and I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and the subject of our show today is fascinating because it's Antony van Levin Hook and he wasn't really a scientist, but he made dozens of important scientific discoveries. He is credited with discovering microscopic life in a variety of forms. And I just want to give a quick heads up to listeners. This episode does discuss reproductive science. So if you listen with younger history buffs and you maybe haven't covered that territory yet, you might want to just give it a quick listen before sharing. But other than that, we're just going to jump right into his life because he did some pretty impressive and also intriguing things. Yes, and we're going to talk about what we mean by not really a scientist later on. So, Anthony von Levin Hook was born on October thirty two in Delft, Netherlands. This was a pretty interesting year. A lot of fascinating people were all born that same year, including John Locke, Baruch de Spinoza, Christopher Wren, and Jan Vermeer, all of them born that same year. Yeah, it was a wild time for important people. And his father Phillips von Levin Hook was a craftsman. His mother, Margarita Bell vanden Burch, who married Phillips ten years before Anthony was born, was from a family of brewers, so they were certainly a respectable family, but they weren't really aristocratic, and according to a book on Leavin Hook and his work that was written in nineteen thirty two by Clifford Dobell, it was tradition in their family to alternate naming firstborn sons either Phillips or Anthony. While Anthony was the first son, he was their fifth child. We grew up with four older sisters. Phillips died when Anthony was only five years old, and a few years after losing her first husband, Margaret's remarried. This time it was to a painter, Jacob Yon's Mullen. Margaretta and Yaca were married in December sixteen forty and around this time the young Anthony started attending school in a village in the Netherlands called Varmond. Later he was sent to live with his uncle in the South Holland province of Benthausen. Yacob died eight years into his marriage to Margaretta, and Anthony who was sixteen when his stepfather passed away, was then sent to Amsterdam. There he started learning about textiles, haberdashery, and linen draping through an apprenticeship, and this is likely the point in his life where he first discovered lenses used for magnification, because in the textile industry they were used and sometimes still are, to examine fibers and thread counts up close. But magnification eventually, of course, took on a far greater role in leaven Hook's life. Several years later, when he was twenty, he went back home to his hometown and he set up shop as a haberdasher. In sixteen fifty four, Anthony married Barbara de May, a young woman three years older than he was who was the daughter of one of his colleagues in the clothing trade, and that couple had five children together, three sons and two daughters over the course of twelve years, but four of those children died quite young. Only one of their daughters, named Maria, who was their second child, lived to adulthood. In sixteen sixty, leaven Hook became the chamberlain to the Sheriffs of Delft, securing a regular income for this position, he held the post for thirty nine years, and he kept receiving income from it after he had retired, all the way up until his death. If you're not clear on what a chamberlain does, here's the description of the job as it was laid out by his employers. There Worships the Burgomasters and Magistrates of the Hound of Delft has appointed and do hereby charge Anthony Leavin Hook to look after the chamber, wherein the Chief Judge, the Sheriffs, and the law officers of this town do assemble to open and shut the foresaid chamber at both ordinary and extraordinary assemblies of the foresaid gentleman, in such wise as shall be required and needful item to show towards these gentlemen, all respect, honor, and reverence, and diligently to perform and faithfully to execute all charges which may be laid upon him, and to keep to himself whatever he may overhear in the chamber, To clean the foresaid chamber properly and to keep it needed tidy, To lay the fire at such times as it may be required and at his own convenience, and carefully to preserve for his own profit what coals may remain unconsumed, and see to it that no mischance befall thereby, nor from the light of the candles. And he shall furthermore do all that is required and that pertaineth to a and trusty chamberlain. So it's a lot of words that basically sums up to keep these offices open when we need them, comfortable, warm and lit, and keep your mouth shut and don't burn the place down, right, which I sort of love. I also like that there's a stipulation that he can keep leftover cold at the end of the day. Uh. But the this stable income that he got from being chamberlain was significant in that it meant that he could devote his free time to science instead of having to hustle to make ends meet, and specifically to the science of grinding lenses, which was a hobby that leaven Hook had enjoyed for some time, most likely, as we said, piqued by his work in the textile trade. It's also believed that he had at some point seen a copy of Robert Hook's book Micrographia, which featured illustrations and writings about Hook's work in observational science. The lenses he was making were specifically microscope lenses, and they weren't like modern compound microscopes. They were very simple, consisting of a single lens, and leaven Hook used them to look at all kinds of things. While he went on to share a great many discoveries, he did not share information about precisely how he was making these observations. And some of his lenses were incredibly minuscule, less than two millimeters in diameter, so tiny like I would drop it on the floor and never find it again. Uh. And of the five hundred lenses that he has estimated to have made in his life, several samples, which were given to the Royal Society of England after his death at his request, could magnify anywhere from fifty to three hundred times actual size. So they were tiny and mighty. But even though the lenses themselves were examined by other scientists, the manner in which leaven Hook used them to observe things like fleas and bacteria still eluded them. His technique actually remains a matter of some debate. In a moment, we will talk about the opinion of an abs irv who visited leaven Hook and offered up what he thought about all these lenses. But first we will take a moment for a quick word from a sponsor. As we said before the break, we don't know exactly how leven Hook made all of his observations, but we're not entirely without insight into how he worked with his lenses. In February he was visited by Irish physician Thomas Mologna, who wrote to the Royal Society about what he saw in leven Hook's lab. And he wrote this as to his microscopes themselves, those which he showed me, in number at least a dozen, were all of one sort, consisting only of one small glass ground. This I mentioned because TIS generally thought his microscopes are blown at a lamp. Those I saw, I am sure are not placed between two thin flat plates of brass about an inch broad and an inch and a half long. In these two plates there were two apertures, one before the other, behind the glass, which were larger or smaller as the glass was more or less convex, or as it magnified. Just opposite to these apertures on one side was placed sometimes a needle, sometimes a slender flat body of glass or opaque matter. As the occasion required, upon which or to its apex, he fixes whatever object he has to look upon. Then, holding it up against the light by help of two small screws, he places it just in the focus of his glass, and then makes his observations. But apparently Leavin Hook did not show him everything. This letter continues, quote, such were the microscopes that I saw, And these are they he shows to the curious that come and visit him. But besides these, he told me he had another sort which no man living had looked through. Setting aside himself, these he reserves for his own private observations. Holy and he assured me they performed far beyond any that he had showed me yet, but would not allow me a sight of them. So all I can do is barely to believe, for I complete no experience in the matter. So I know we read his little description, but I want to put it in plainer language. Um, And so you get a sense of Leavin Hook's known microscope set up in more detail. It sort of resembles a small paddle if you just look at the outline of it. So the main body of this paddle was made up of two identically shaped brass plates and on each plate there was a small hole about two thirds of the way up the body. This is the thing that Molgna describes, uh, these these holes having apertures, so they can be altered in in terms of their size. And that lens was placed between the two plates at that point of the hole, so you can see through the first hole through the lens and then through the hole on the other side. And on the back of the paddle was this pin that was held in place by focusing screws, and so a specimen could be based on that pin and then adjusted via the focusing screw so up or down her side to side a little bit until the object of observation came into focus through the lens. For the other secret microscope that he showed to no one else, that remains a mystery. Yeah, And some of his observations were so astonishing in their detail that we know he was using something else, we just don't know what. And even as the haberdasher turned scientists, reputation grew and he was visited by the likes of Peter the Great of Russia, James the Second of England, and Frederick the Second of Prussia. He would not reveal even to these monarchs his methods, and that was something of a disappointment in some cases, because visiting dignitaries expected that they would have this curtain pulled back on Leven Hook's secrets, and they always had to leave without such knowledge. Laven Hook's wife, Barbara, died in sixteen sixty six, and five years later, in sixteen seventy one, laven Hook married again, that's time to a woman named Cornelia swam Us. The two of them remained together for twenty three years until she died in sixteen ninety four. In sixteen seventy three, through a connection made by a friend, Leavin Hook began corresponding with the Royal Society of England and from that point on he corresponded with the group about all of the various things that he saw through his simple microscope. He made a lot of discoveries, but he wasn't entirely methodical about the process. He didn't do formal scientific work. Yeah, and that's really what we mean when we talk about not a real scientist. That he he wasn't systematically approaching a field of study. He was just kind of looking at stuff nat and then drawing it or having it drawn for himself usually. They actually wrote a letter to the Royal Society describing his misgivings about sharing his findings, and in it he said, quote, I have oft times been besought by diverse genttleman to set down on paper what I have beheld through my newly invented microscopia. But I have generally declined, first because I have no style or pen wherewith to express my thoughts properly, secondly because I have not been brought up to languages or arts, but only to business. And in the third place, because I do not gladly suffer contradiction or sensure from others. This resolve of mine, however, I have now set aside as I can't draw. I have got them drawn for me, but the proportions have not come out as well as I had hoped to see them, and each figure that I send you here with was seen and drawn through a different magnifying glass. I beg you, therefore, and those gentlemen to whose notice these may come, please to bear in mind that my observations and thoughts are the outcome of my own unaided impulse and curiosity alone. For besides myself in our town there be no philosophers who practice this art to pray, take not amiss my poor pen and the liberty I here take in setting down my random notions. Yeah, he acknowledged, like, I'm not formally trained in any of this, please still send me a lot of critiques. Also, I can't draw, which I found really quite lovely that he was very upfront and said, I don't like being criticized. I don't really know what I'm doing, but I kind of do want to share this stuff. As another person who can't draw, I I empathize. I'm not very good either. I have a few tricks and then I'm out. But just the same. Despite all of these sort of caveats that he gave, the Royal Society, the Royal Society of England welcomed his findings, and it was through the Society that most of his work became public knowledge. They published many of his discoveries through the years in their periodical philosophical transactions, and over the course of Laven Hook's life, three hundred seventy five different pieces of content attributed to him appeared in philosophical transactions. Those first letters and subsequent publications describe as mentioned in the letter, we just read from Uh. There's a later part where he talks about them be mouths, be eyes, and the stingers of bees. He also describes a fungus and a lout. I love this part because I am very fond of insects, weird mouth parts. You are a kindred spirit. With Antony van leven Hook, he wrote a lot about them. Yep. So in the mid sixteen seventies, Leavin Hook, using his microscopic lembs is to look at water, started as observing things that he referred to as very little animal cules. It's possibly the most adorable portmanteau of all time. He was looking at protozoa, but the scientists of the sixteen seventies didn't really know what he was seeing. They did not have a concept to match these animal cueles. The samples that he used for observation came from everywhere. That came from pond and rainwater, from human saliva, and even from human intestines. His reputation came under fire for all of this animal cules talk. So when leaven Hook was describing highly magnified space simmons of known things like insects and fungus, his work was accepted by the Royal Society and even lauded. But then talking about microscopic living things was another matter entirely. It sounded completely preposterous to a lot of people at the time. It was such a sea change in the scientific world that a number of members of the Royal Society dismissed the work outright. Eventually, the year after publication, and after several people had observed leaven Hook's work and yet others had managed to duplicate his findings, his discovery was actually recognized. Next up, we will talk about an area of discovery that leaven Hook was initially reluctant to even consider. But first we will take another quick sponsor break. In sixteen seven, Anthony Van Levin Hook began studying superman, a zoa from a variety of species. Other scientists had already encouraged him to turn his microscope to the examination of semen, but he had been really pretty apprehensive because he thought writing about such things might be perceived as crude and impolite. Finally, though, Leavin Hook found the courage to do some observational work in this area. When he finally wrote to the Royal Society about what he had seen through his lenses. The letter was awkward and nervous, and it left the matter of what to do with this information up to the recipient. He wrote, quote, what I investigate is only what, without sinfully defiling myself, remains as a residue after conjugal coitus. And if your Lordship should consider that these observations may discuss or scandalized the learned, I earnestly beg your lordship to regard them as private and to publish or destroy them as your lordship thinks fit so nervous so, this entire branch of science at the time was loaded with varying ideas and cons ups to explain exactly how reproduction played out. There were theories that some sort of vapor was involved in male ejaculate that catalyzed the production of new life on the part of women. And another idea was that all the material to make a new human was contained in the sperm and that it merely needed to be implanted in a uterus for gestation. And all of these varying theories there were many others, were categorized into two basic schools of thought. Epigenesists, who believed that some sort of combining of materials from a man and a woman created life and preformationists who thought that the complete makeup of a human was contained in one or the other, the sperm or the egg, and that sexual intercourse served as some sort of catalyst for the process of development. Laven Tech's work in this area was really controversial. I mean it should be obvious from what he felt compelled to point out about it in that letter that he wrote. There were some members of the Royal Society who thought he had actually misidentified parasites, and there was a lot of stigma around this kind of research once he had started, though he continued on with it, eventually examining spermatozoa from lots of other animals, mostly mammals, but also birds, fish, mollusks, and amphibians. Yeah, he did a lot of like frog research, but spermatozoa is certainly not the only thing. But Leavin Hook on the Scientific Map we talked about some of his insect observations earlier, but he noted, for example, pertheno genesis in aphids, and he studied and described like we mentioned, the tiniest parts of insects and plants and offered insights that previously had not been known into both of those. In sixteen eighty he made observations that significantly advanced human knowledge of yeast, and his work really led to great strides in the understanding of plant life and how it grows. He also described red blood cells for the first time known about in human history in sight, and he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of England that year. In three Philosophical Transactions published a drawing by leaven Hook that's believed to be the first graphical depiction of bacteria. He made this discovery while looking at examples of plaque from the mouths of himself and several other people. Quote, I then most always saw with great wonder that in said matter there were many very little living animal fueles, very prettily a moving That's a nice way to describe bacteria in your mouth. Oh they're so cute, They're just pretty. One of the most important contributions made to science by leaven Hook was the work he did to disprove the concept of spontaneous generation. So, just in case you need a refresher on that one. Spontaneous generation was a theory that life forms could generate spontaneously from non living matter. The common example is the once widely believed idea that maggots spontaneously general rated from rotting meat. I had a book as a child that included the example of barnacles that looked like geese becoming geese, and I was at the age of five, like, are you kidding me? That's fantastic. I wish I still had that book somewhere. It was bizarre. So laban Hook and his study of little tiny organisms started examining the life cycles of small creatures and studying weevils, he observed that they were grubs that hatched from eggs and not as was commonly accepted, just sprouting forth from wheat. Similarly, his examination of fleas resulted in a detailed description of their life cycle, including hatching from eggs, which was in opposition to a popular belief that they were generated spontaneously from sand, dust or other particulate non living matter. For a long time, what we now know our aunt's pupae were believed to be their eggs, and it was laban Hook who set the record straight on that, establishing that their eggs are in fact much tinier than that, and that the insects passed through a larval stage before the pupil was formed. His observations were not exclusively focused on tiny creatures, though. He also studied sea creatures such as muscles and eels, both of which had been at one point believed to be the product of spontaneous generation, and seventeen o two he wrote extensively on the microscopic aquatic invertebrates known as Radifer's So while the subjects of his work were at times quite small, these were really huge developments in the scientific community. He died where he was born on the twenty six of August seventeen twenty three. And we're going to revisit that letter that Thomas Molna wrote to the Royal Society while visiting laven Hook, because in addition to the sections that we read earlier in the show, he also included this description, which became a little bit famous. I found him a very little complacent man, and doubtless of great natural abilities, but contrary to my expectations, quite a stranger to letters master, neither of Latin, French or English, or any of the modern tongues besides his own, which is a great hindrance to him and his reasonings. Upon his observations for being ignorant of all other men's thoughts. He is wholly trusting to his own, which I observe now, and then lead him into extravagancies and suggest very odd accounts of things. Nay, sometimes such as are wholly irreconcilable with all truth. You see, sir, how freely I give you my thoughts on him, because you desired it. But in some ways it seems as though part of the reason that Antony von Levin Hook was so prolific in his observations was because he was an outsider, without pre existing scientific ideas informing his work. He just saw what he saw and then he recorded it, and he didn't feel constrained by what was expected of a scientist. Yeah, even though Leavin Hook made his observations beginning in sixteen seventy three, it wasn't even until the eighteen hundreds that people started to comprehend that, for example, the bacteria that he described were linked to disease. So he was so far ahead that science could not had to have a little time to catch up to what he had discovered. And while his letters to colleagues and to the Royal Society were collected into books, He never formally penned a book or wrote a scientific paper. In an interview with the Smithsonian in Marvin Bolt, he was curator of Science and Technology at the Corning Museum of Glass, which is a fascinating place if you ever get the opportunity to go there. Quote Robert Hook was looking at parts of animals that were already known, then von Levin Hook went deeper to see on a cellular level things no one had ever seen before, such as muscle fibers, sperm, and bacteria. He really blazed the trail. So that's Anthony von Levin Hook and his teeny tiny SI and I love I love it so much. By so much for joining us on this Saturday. Since this episode is out of the archive, if you heard an email address or Facebook U r L or something similar over the course of the show, that could be obsolete now. Our current email address is History Podcast at I heart radio dot com. Our old how stuff works email address no longer works, and you can find us all over social media at missed in History. And you can subscribe to our show on Apple podcasts, Google podcast, the I heart Radio app, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Stuff You Missed in History Class is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Hello, and Happy Saturday. In our Unearthed episodes, this week we talked about Anthony von Levin Hook's microscopes and lenses. It's been a bit since our episode on him came out. That was back on March twelve, and it's a fun one, I think, so I thought let's have it as a Saturday classic. Yep still features one of my favorite words of all times, animal fuels. Uh. And after this episode came out, we got several emails about Tracy's recollection of having a book as a child that used Barnacle Geese as an illustration of the idea of spontaneous generation, and some folks mentioned that this shows up in Susan Cooper's The Darkest Rising series. Others mentioned the seventeenth century The herbal Or General History of Plants by John Gerard. Neither of these was the book Tracy had as a kid, but we did think we'd mentioned them just the same. Yeah, I haven't managed to track down with that book actually was. I also forgot about it in the years that have passed since then. So enjoy everyone. Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frying and I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and the subject of our show today is fascinating because it's Antony van Levin Hook and he wasn't really a scientist, but he made dozens of important scientific discoveries. He is credited with discovering microscopic life in a variety of forms. And I just want to give a quick heads up to listeners. This episode does discuss reproductive science. So if you listen with younger history buffs and you maybe haven't covered that territory yet, you might want to just give it a quick listen before sharing. But other than that, we're just going to jump right into his life because he did some pretty impressive and also intriguing things. Yes, and we're going to talk about what we mean by not really a scientist later on. So, Anthony von Levin Hook was born on October thirty two in Delft, Netherlands. This was a pretty interesting year. A lot of fascinating people were all born that same year, including John Locke, Baruch de Spinoza, Christopher Wren, and Jan Vermeer, all of them born that same year. Yeah, it was a wild time for important people. And his father Phillips von Levin Hook was a craftsman. His mother, Margarita Bell vanden Burch, who married Phillips ten years before Anthony was born, was from a family of brewers, so they were certainly a respectable family, but they weren't really aristocratic, and according to a book on Leavin Hook and his work that was written in nineteen thirty two by Clifford Dobell, it was tradition in their family to alternate naming firstborn sons either Phillips or Anthony. While Anthony was the first son, he was their fifth child. We grew up with four older sisters. Phillips died when Anthony was only five years old, and a few years after losing her first husband, Margaret's remarried. This time it was to a painter, Jacob Yon's Mullen. Margaretta and Yaca were married in December sixteen forty and around this time the young Anthony started attending school in a village in the Netherlands called Varmond. Later he was sent to live with his uncle in the South Holland province of Benthausen. Yacob died eight years into his marriage to Margaretta, and Anthony who was sixteen when his stepfather passed away, was then sent to Amsterdam. There he started learning about textiles, haberdashery, and linen draping through an apprenticeship, and this is likely the point in his life where he first discovered lenses used for magnification, because in the textile industry they were used and sometimes still are, to examine fibers and thread counts up close. But magnification eventually, of course, took on a far greater role in leaven Hook's life. Several years later, when he was twenty, he went back home to his hometown and he set up shop as a haberdasher. In sixteen fifty four, Anthony married Barbara de May, a young woman three years older than he was who was the daughter of one of his colleagues in the clothing trade, and that couple had five children together, three sons and two daughters over the course of twelve years, but four of those children died quite young. Only one of their daughters, named Maria, who was their second child, lived to adulthood. In sixteen sixty, leaven Hook became the chamberlain to the Sheriffs of Delft, securing a regular income for this position, he held the post for thirty nine years, and he kept receiving income from it after he had retired, all the way up until his death. If you're not clear on what a chamberlain does, here's the description of the job as it was laid out by his employers. There Worships the Burgomasters and Magistrates of the Hound of Delft has appointed and do hereby charge Anthony Leavin Hook to look after the chamber, wherein the Chief Judge, the Sheriffs, and the law officers of this town do assemble to open and shut the foresaid chamber at both ordinary and extraordinary assemblies of the foresaid gentleman, in such wise as shall be required and needful item to show towards these gentlemen, all respect, honor, and reverence, and diligently to perform and faithfully to execute all charges which may be laid upon him, and to keep to himself whatever he may overhear in the chamber, To clean the foresaid chamber properly and to keep it needed tidy, To lay the fire at such times as it may be required and at his own convenience, and carefully to preserve for his own profit what coals may remain unconsumed, and see to it that no mischance befall thereby, nor from the light of the candles. And he shall furthermore do all that is required and that pertaineth to a and trusty chamberlain. So it's a lot of words that basically sums up to keep these offices open when we need them, comfortable, warm and lit, and keep your mouth shut and don't burn the place down, right, which I sort of love. I also like that there's a stipulation that he can keep leftover cold at the end of the day. Uh. But the this stable income that he got from being chamberlain was significant in that it meant that he could devote his free time to science instead of having to hustle to make ends meet, and specifically to the science of grinding lenses, which was a hobby that leaven Hook had enjoyed for some time, most likely, as we said, piqued by his work in the textile trade. It's also believed that he had at some point seen a copy of Robert Hook's book Micrographia, which featured illustrations and writings about Hook's work in observational science. The lenses he was making were specifically microscope lenses, and they weren't like modern compound microscopes. They were very simple, consisting of a single lens, and leaven Hook used them to look at all kinds of things. While he went on to share a great many discoveries, he did not share information about precisely how he was making these observations. And some of his lenses were incredibly minuscule, less than two millimeters in diameter, so tiny like I would drop it on the floor and never find it again. Uh. And of the five hundred lenses that he has estimated to have made in his life, several samples, which were given to the Royal Society of England after his death at his request, could magnify anywhere from fifty to three hundred times actual size. So they were tiny and mighty. But even though the lenses themselves were examined by other scientists, the manner in which leaven Hook used them to observe things like fleas and bacteria still eluded them. His technique actually remains a matter of some debate. In a moment, we will talk about the opinion of an abs irv who visited leaven Hook and offered up what he thought about all these lenses. But first we will take a moment for a quick word from a sponsor. As we said before the break, we don't know exactly how leven Hook made all of his observations, but we're not entirely without insight into how he worked with his lenses. In February he was visited by Irish physician Thomas Mologna, who wrote to the Royal Society about what he saw in leven Hook's lab. And he wrote this as to his microscopes themselves, those which he showed me, in number at least a dozen, were all of one sort, consisting only of one small glass ground. This I mentioned because TIS generally thought his microscopes are blown at a lamp. Those I saw, I am sure are not placed between two thin flat plates of brass about an inch broad and an inch and a half long. In these two plates there were two apertures, one before the other, behind the glass, which were larger or smaller as the glass was more or less convex, or as it magnified. Just opposite to these apertures on one side was placed sometimes a needle, sometimes a slender flat body of glass or opaque matter. As the occasion required, upon which or to its apex, he fixes whatever object he has to look upon. Then, holding it up against the light by help of two small screws, he places it just in the focus of his glass, and then makes his observations. But apparently Leavin Hook did not show him everything. This letter continues, quote, such were the microscopes that I saw, And these are they he shows to the curious that come and visit him. But besides these, he told me he had another sort which no man living had looked through. Setting aside himself, these he reserves for his own private observations. Holy and he assured me they performed far beyond any that he had showed me yet, but would not allow me a sight of them. So all I can do is barely to believe, for I complete no experience in the matter. So I know we read his little description, but I want to put it in plainer language. Um, And so you get a sense of Leavin Hook's known microscope set up in more detail. It sort of resembles a small paddle if you just look at the outline of it. So the main body of this paddle was made up of two identically shaped brass plates and on each plate there was a small hole about two thirds of the way up the body. This is the thing that Molgna describes, uh, these these holes having apertures, so they can be altered in in terms of their size. And that lens was placed between the two plates at that point of the hole, so you can see through the first hole through the lens and then through the hole on the other side. And on the back of the paddle was this pin that was held in place by focusing screws, and so a specimen could be based on that pin and then adjusted via the focusing screw so up or down her side to side a little bit until the object of observation came into focus through the lens. For the other secret microscope that he showed to no one else, that remains a mystery. Yeah, And some of his observations were so astonishing in their detail that we know he was using something else, we just don't know what. And even as the haberdasher turned scientists, reputation grew and he was visited by the likes of Peter the Great of Russia, James the Second of England, and Frederick the Second of Prussia. He would not reveal even to these monarchs his methods, and that was something of a disappointment in some cases, because visiting dignitaries expected that they would have this curtain pulled back on Leven Hook's secrets, and they always had to leave without such knowledge. Laven Hook's wife, Barbara, died in sixteen sixty six, and five years later, in sixteen seventy one, laven Hook married again, that's time to a woman named Cornelia swam Us. The two of them remained together for twenty three years until she died in sixteen ninety four. In sixteen seventy three, through a connection made by a friend, Leavin Hook began corresponding with the Royal Society of England and from that point on he corresponded with the group about all of the various things that he saw through his simple microscope. He made a lot of discoveries, but he wasn't entirely methodical about the process. He didn't do formal scientific work. Yeah, and that's really what we mean when we talk about not a real scientist. That he he wasn't systematically approaching a field of study. He was just kind of looking at stuff nat and then drawing it or having it drawn for himself usually. They actually wrote a letter to the Royal Society describing his misgivings about sharing his findings, and in it he said, quote, I have oft times been besought by diverse genttleman to set down on paper what I have beheld through my newly invented microscopia. But I have generally declined, first because I have no style or pen wherewith to express my thoughts properly, secondly because I have not been brought up to languages or arts, but only to business. And in the third place, because I do not gladly suffer contradiction or sensure from others. This resolve of mine, however, I have now set aside as I can't draw. I have got them drawn for me, but the proportions have not come out as well as I had hoped to see them, and each figure that I send you here with was seen and drawn through a different magnifying glass. I beg you, therefore, and those gentlemen to whose notice these may come, please to bear in mind that my observations and thoughts are the outcome of my own unaided impulse and curiosity alone. For besides myself in our town there be no philosophers who practice this art to pray, take not amiss my poor pen and the liberty I here take in setting down my random notions. Yeah, he acknowledged, like, I'm not formally trained in any of this, please still send me a lot of critiques. Also, I can't draw, which I found really quite lovely that he was very upfront and said, I don't like being criticized. I don't really know what I'm doing, but I kind of do want to share this stuff. As another person who can't draw, I I empathize. I'm not very good either. I have a few tricks and then I'm out. But just the same. Despite all of these sort of caveats that he gave, the Royal Society, the Royal Society of England welcomed his findings, and it was through the Society that most of his work became public knowledge. They published many of his discoveries through the years in their periodical philosophical transactions, and over the course of Laven Hook's life, three hundred seventy five different pieces of content attributed to him appeared in philosophical transactions. Those first letters and subsequent publications describe as mentioned in the letter, we just read from Uh. There's a later part where he talks about them be mouths, be eyes, and the stingers of bees. He also describes a fungus and a lout. I love this part because I am very fond of insects, weird mouth parts. You are a kindred spirit. With Antony van leven Hook, he wrote a lot about them. Yep. So in the mid sixteen seventies, Leavin Hook, using his microscopic lembs is to look at water, started as observing things that he referred to as very little animal cules. It's possibly the most adorable portmanteau of all time. He was looking at protozoa, but the scientists of the sixteen seventies didn't really know what he was seeing. They did not have a concept to match these animal cueles. The samples that he used for observation came from everywhere. That came from pond and rainwater, from human saliva, and even from human intestines. His reputation came under fire for all of this animal cules talk. So when leaven Hook was describing highly magnified space simmons of known things like insects and fungus, his work was accepted by the Royal Society and even lauded. But then talking about microscopic living things was another matter entirely. It sounded completely preposterous to a lot of people at the time. It was such a sea change in the scientific world that a number of members of the Royal Society dismissed the work outright. Eventually, the year after publication, and after several people had observed leaven Hook's work and yet others had managed to duplicate his findings, his discovery was actually recognized. Next up, we will talk about an area of discovery that leaven Hook was initially reluctant to even consider. But first we will take another quick sponsor break. In sixteen seven, Anthony Van Levin Hook began studying superman, a zoa from a variety of species. Other scientists had already encouraged him to turn his microscope to the examination of semen, but he had been really pretty apprehensive because he thought writing about such things might be perceived as crude and impolite. Finally, though, Leavin Hook found the courage to do some observational work in this area. When he finally wrote to the Royal Society about what he had seen through his lenses. The letter was awkward and nervous, and it left the matter of what to do with this information up to the recipient. He wrote, quote, what I investigate is only what, without sinfully defiling myself, remains as a residue after conjugal coitus. And if your Lordship should consider that these observations may discuss or scandalized the learned, I earnestly beg your lordship to regard them as private and to publish or destroy them as your lordship thinks fit so nervous so, this entire branch of science at the time was loaded with varying ideas and cons ups to explain exactly how reproduction played out. There were theories that some sort of vapor was involved in male ejaculate that catalyzed the production of new life on the part of women. And another idea was that all the material to make a new human was contained in the sperm and that it merely needed to be implanted in a uterus for gestation. And all of these varying theories there were many others, were categorized into two basic schools of thought. Epigenesists, who believed that some sort of combining of materials from a man and a woman created life and preformationists who thought that the complete makeup of a human was contained in one or the other, the sperm or the egg, and that sexual intercourse served as some sort of catalyst for the process of development. Laven Tech's work in this area was really controversial. I mean it should be obvious from what he felt compelled to point out about it in that letter that he wrote. There were some members of the Royal Society who thought he had actually misidentified parasites, and there was a lot of stigma around this kind of research once he had started, though he continued on with it, eventually examining spermatozoa from lots of other animals, mostly mammals, but also birds, fish, mollusks, and amphibians. Yeah, he did a lot of like frog research, but spermatozoa is certainly not the only thing. But Leavin Hook on the Scientific Map we talked about some of his insect observations earlier, but he noted, for example, pertheno genesis in aphids, and he studied and described like we mentioned, the tiniest parts of insects and plants and offered insights that previously had not been known into both of those. In sixteen eighty he made observations that significantly advanced human knowledge of yeast, and his work really led to great strides in the understanding of plant life and how it grows. He also described red blood cells for the first time known about in human history in sight, and he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of England that year. In three Philosophical Transactions published a drawing by leaven Hook that's believed to be the first graphical depiction of bacteria. He made this discovery while looking at examples of plaque from the mouths of himself and several other people. Quote, I then most always saw with great wonder that in said matter there were many very little living animal fueles, very prettily a moving That's a nice way to describe bacteria in your mouth. Oh they're so cute, They're just pretty. One of the most important contributions made to science by leaven Hook was the work he did to disprove the concept of spontaneous generation. So, just in case you need a refresher on that one. Spontaneous generation was a theory that life forms could generate spontaneously from non living matter. The common example is the once widely believed idea that maggots spontaneously general rated from rotting meat. I had a book as a child that included the example of barnacles that looked like geese becoming geese, and I was at the age of five, like, are you kidding me? That's fantastic. I wish I still had that book somewhere. It was bizarre. So laban Hook and his study of little tiny organisms started examining the life cycles of small creatures and studying weevils, he observed that they were grubs that hatched from eggs and not as was commonly accepted, just sprouting forth from wheat. Similarly, his examination of fleas resulted in a detailed description of their life cycle, including hatching from eggs, which was in opposition to a popular belief that they were generated spontaneously from sand, dust or other particulate non living matter. For a long time, what we now know our aunt's pupae were believed to be their eggs, and it was laban Hook who set the record straight on that, establishing that their eggs are in fact much tinier than that, and that the insects passed through a larval stage before the pupil was formed. His observations were not exclusively focused on tiny creatures, though. He also studied sea creatures such as muscles and eels, both of which had been at one point believed to be the product of spontaneous generation, and seventeen o two he wrote extensively on the microscopic aquatic invertebrates known as Radifer's So while the subjects of his work were at times quite small, these were really huge developments in the scientific community. He died where he was born on the twenty six of August seventeen twenty three. And we're going to revisit that letter that Thomas Molna wrote to the Royal Society while visiting laven Hook, because in addition to the sections that we read earlier in the show, he also included this description, which became a little bit famous. I found him a very little complacent man, and doubtless of great natural abilities, but contrary to my expectations, quite a stranger to letters master, neither of Latin, French or English, or any of the modern tongues besides his own, which is a great hindrance to him and his reasonings. Upon his observations for being ignorant of all other men's thoughts. He is wholly trusting to his own, which I observe now, and then lead him into extravagancies and suggest very odd accounts of things. Nay, sometimes such as are wholly irreconcilable with all truth. You see, sir, how freely I give you my thoughts on him, because you desired it. But in some ways it seems as though part of the reason that Antony von Levin Hook was so prolific in his observations was because he was an outsider, without pre existing scientific ideas informing his work. He just saw what he saw and then he recorded it, and he didn't feel constrained by what was expected of a scientist. Yeah, even though Leavin Hook made his observations beginning in sixteen seventy three, it wasn't even until the eighteen hundreds that people started to comprehend that, for example, the bacteria that he described were linked to disease. So he was so far ahead that science could not had to have a little time to catch up to what he had discovered. And while his letters to colleagues and to the Royal Society were collected into books, He never formally penned a book or wrote a scientific paper. In an interview with the Smithsonian in Marvin Bolt, he was curator of Science and Technology at the Corning Museum of Glass, which is a fascinating place if you ever get the opportunity to go there. Quote Robert Hook was looking at parts of animals that were already known, then von Levin Hook went deeper to see on a cellular level things no one had ever seen before, such as muscle fibers, sperm, and bacteria. He really blazed the trail. So that's Anthony von Levin Hook and his teeny tiny SI and I love I love it so much. By so much for joining us on this Saturday. Since this episode is out of the archive, if you heard an email address or Facebook U r L or something similar over the course of the show, that could be obsolete now. 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