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Anthony van Leeuwenhoek, a Dutch naturalist of the 18th century, the founder of scientific microscopy, makes a lens in his workshop. He is visited by an English scientist, a member of the Royal ...

When Royal Society Secretary Henry Oldenburg asked Leeuwenhoek to look at semen, the Dutch draper initially did not reply “because he felt it was ‘unseemly.'” Despite living in the Dutch Republic ...