A microscope is a tool that is crucial in many branches of science and medicine. It allows doctors to diagnose disease and researchers to identify new pathogens and develop new treatments and vaccines. With adequate microscope inspection Greenville SC, these devices allow human beings to explore a world previously closed off to them, yet one that impacts the larger world in profound ways. There is still some dispute as to how this marvelous tool came into existence.
Invention of the Microscope
Historians are mostly in agreement that the microscope was invented in the Netherlands around the turn of the 17th century. However, they disagree over whether the inventor was Hans Lippershey or the honor goes to Hans and Zacharias Janssen.
An immigrant from Wesel Germany, Lippershey definitely gets credit for the first telescope patent on file. However, letters from a Dutch diplomat to the king of France’s physician call Lippershey’s claim of inventing the microscope into question. The diplomat, William Boreel, described the microscope in a letter in the 1650s, identifying the Janssens, a father-son team of spectacle makers, as its inventors in the early 1590s. The Janssens and Lippershey all lived in the same town and were in a similar line of work. The available evidence raises the question of whether the Janssens and Lippershey may have shared notes with one another.
Development of the Microscope
There were several more scientists who made improvements to the microscope following its invention. Antoine van Leeuwenhoek was a Dutch scientist whose name is closely associated with the microscope. He improved the design in the 1670s to produce a more powerful microscope that only required one lens. Prior to that, Robert Hooke used his own improved microscope design to examine the structure of plants. The small holes he observed in plant tissues reminded him of the small rooms, or “cells,” that form sleeping quarters for monks in a monastery. The basic functional units of life have been known as “cells” ever since.