Myriad Monsters Confirmed in Water Droplets, Science News Online (12/18/99)

 Myriad Monsters Confirmed in Water Droplets

 By S. Milius

 LONDON, November 1677-A Dutch merchant's startling claim that thousands of 
tiny monsters frolic within a single droplet of water was verified at the Nov. 
15 meeting of the Royal Society of London.

 Society Fellow Robert Hooke, who made the decisive confirmation, describes the 
wonders as "perfectly shaped" with "such curious organs of motion as to be able 
to move nimbly, to turn, stay, accelerate, and retard their progress at 
pleasure."

 A correspondent of the society, draper and haberdasher Antony van Leeuwenhoek 
of Delft had described miniature creatures in a letter published in the March 
Philosophical Transactions. To see the cavorting creatures, Leeuwenhoek 
fashioned a device of the type called a microscope. It uses a bit of glass to 
enlarge the view of an object.

 His letter inspired a brisk correspondence as Society Secretary Henry 
Oldenburg pressed for details "that others may confirm such observations."

 The discoverer of the watery menagerie seems to take such doubt in stride. "I 
can't wonder at it, since 'tis difficult to comprehend such things without 
getting a sight of 'em," Leeuwenhoek replied. With the next account of his 
miniature world, he provided testimonials from eight eyewitnesses, including 
three pastors and a notary public.

 At a society meeting earlier in November, fellows squinted into a variety of 
water droplets but reported only uncertainty about discerning any of the 
predicted creatures.

 At the most recent meeting, their efforts at last succeeded. Hooke displayed 
droplets of rainwater to which he had added a pinch of common black pepper. 
Within these droplets danced a variety of little animals, some "so exceedingly 
small that millions of millions might be contained in one drop of water," he 
reports.

"Of this, the president and all the members present were satisfied," says 
Hooke. Witnesses included several barristers and the architect Christopher Wren.

 His Majesty, founder and patron of the Royal Society, has not issued a direct 
comment but, according to Hooke, is desirous of observing the animalcules for 
himself.

 The notion that some kind of life or animation abounds in a miniature realm is 
not entirely new. None of the earlier claims, however, had the detail-or 
impact-of the March publication. For example, Leeuwenhoek himself in a letter 
to the society several years ago had also made brief mention of miniature 
creatures. Even earlier, during an outbreak of plague in Naples, Father 
Athanasius Kircher used a microscope to detect animated particles in blood 
drawn from the victims

 In his March publication, Leeuwenhoek reported finding in plain rainwater 
animals "more than a thousand times less [in size] than the eye of full-grown 
louse." He described some as composed of "very clear globules" without obvious 
skin.

"When these animalcules bestirred 'emselves, they sometimes stuck out two 
little horns, which were continually moved, after the fashion of a horse's 
ears," he said. "These little animals were the most wretched creatures that I 
have ever seen," he noted. They blundered into the many tiny particles in water 
and had to stretch and struggle to work themselves loose.

 Leeuwenhoek also examined pepper-water, the material used in the confirmatory 
experiment, and saw "very little round animalcules" with "so swift a motion 
before the eye, as they darted among the others, that 'tis not to be believed." 
He also found "little eels, or worms, lying all huddled up together and 
wriggling."

 Science News has learned that Leeuwenhoek intends to expand his searches 
beyond water to scrapings of his own teeth, collections from his chamber pot, 
and discharges from both gonorrhea patients and healthy men. It seems that the 
miniature world that he has glimpsed could easily occupy him for half a century.

 He says that his earliest sighting of thousands of animalcules in a drop of 
water "was for me, among all the marvels that I have discovered in nature, the 
most marvellous of all; and I must say, for my part, that no more pleasant 
sight has ever yet come before my eyes."