Western Culture Global Presents

The Top 100 Heroes of Western Culture
These individuals have most contributed to replacing ignorance with knowledge, savagery with civilization, disease with health, tyranny with liberty, poverty with abundance, and despair with happiness.



#30: Antony van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723)

Antony van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) was a Dutch scientist and tradesman who is properly considered the father of microbiology.

Leeuwenhoek succeeded in making some of the most important discoveries in the history of biology. Using microscopes that he himself handcrafted, he was the first to observe and describe bacteria, free-living and parasitic microscopic protists, sperm cells, blood cells, microscopic nematodes and more.

Prior to Leeuwenhoek, the existence of single celled organisms was entirely unknown. Eventually, his discovery of microorganisms would powerfully contribute to the unprecedented life-saving ability of modern medicine.

Like virtually all Western culture heroes, Leeuwenhoek had a craving for knowledge and an intense curiosity of the world around him, including the unseen world. We are all in his debt for his possession of these virtues.



Go to #31: Alhazen


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