Bacteria | Wretched beasties
Wretched beasties
The discovery that bacteria exist is one of the major breakthroughs in science. It began with the development of the microscope. In the late 1600s Dutch merchant and amateur scientist Antony van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723) had built microscopes that magnified objects up to two hundred times their size. While he was examining water droplets and the white matter on teeth he noted the existence of these "wretched beasties" wriggling about. Although he did not know it, this was the first recorded sighting of bacteria.
Two hundred years later researchers connected these tiny microbes to some of the deadly diseases that were sweeping through the world and killing hundreds of millions of people. For thousands of years, people did not understand the cause of disease; they often blamed a disease on evil spirits or as a punishment to the victim.
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