The Discovery of Sperm Cells
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek was born in 1632 and is widely recognized as the world’s first microbiologist. He was the inventor of the first single-cell microscope which allowed him to study the composition of just about everything. He sent hundreds of letters to the Royal Society of London and with those letters he is credited with dozens of discoveries. He was so prolific in his discoveries, largely due to his invention of the microscope, that was able to magnify a person’s vision nearly 300 times. There are even some who believed that he was able to make microscopes with up to 500 times magnification.
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek’s microscopes were unheard of for the time and he was the only one with the technical ability to create them. During his life, he made 25 single-lens microscopes and 500 optical lenses. When he died in 1723 at the ripe age of 90 due to a rare disease (that would eventually bear his name), he took his knowledge to the grave. It wasn’t until 200 years later that someone was finally able to re-create his method in order to learn how Antonie van Leeuwenhoek had created his revolutionary microscopes.
One of Antonie van Leeuwenhoek’s discoveries also changed the way the world viewed lovemaking and reproduction. In 1677, he was making love to his wife and quite enjoying himself. Once he finished inside of his wife, the researcher jumped off and rushed to collect a sample of the fluids he had just deposited into his wife. His reputation with the Royal Society of London had led to their encouragement with his studies of human bodily fluids. Up until this point he had analyzed blood, milk, spit and tears but now it was time to see what was inside his very own semen.
When he placed the sample onto his microscope he did so in time to see living sperm cells. He described the sample as teeming with tiny “animalcules.” He said they had a blunt head and a nearly transparent tail and said that they moved like an eel. He was so entranced by what he had found that he surmised that the sperm cell was the only thing that was needed to make an embryo and that the egg and uterus merely nourished it. This was against the current view at the time that suggested the embryo grew from the egg after the sperm added a “volatile spark.” It wouldn’t be until the middle of the 19th century that scientists would truly understand the roles of the sperm and the egg in human reproduction.
Interesting Fact: Van Leeuwenhoek Gives Us Reason to Brush and Floss?