Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.15738

    Models of yeast globules and glass tube

    Date
    14 June 1680
    Creator
    Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632 - 1723, Dutch) , Naturalist
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p7
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 230mm
    width (page): 166mm
    Subject
    Description
    In a letter from Antoni van Leeuwenhoek to Thomas Gale. The
    drawings are likely by Leeuwenhoek himself.

    Fig. 1: is a model in bees wax of how Van Leeuwenhoek observed yeast in beer.
    Fig. 2: the same wax model after rolling it in his hands. Van Leeuwenhoek describes that this is how he thinks globules in beer would look after fermentation of the beer.
    Fig. 3: example of a glass tube which Van Leeuwenhoek filled with pepper and clean rain water. The tube is closed by melting. To Van Leeuwenhoek's great surprise, there he discovered life in the tubes after opening them again after five days. What he saw was colonies of bacteria.
    Object history
    Printed in Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, Ondervindingen en Beschouwingen der onsigtbare geschapenen waarheden, vervat in verscheydenen Brieven (Leiden: Daniel van Gaesbeeck, 1684), pp. 1-8.

    Fig. 1 contains three images in the the printed version.
    Related fellows
    Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632 - 1723, Dutch) , Naturalist
    Thomas Gale (1635 - 1702, British) , Antiquary
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > Netherlands
    Powered by CollectionsIndex+/CollectionsOnline