The First Microbiologist
By: Calin Aneculaesei
Tags: Biology, Science, History, Innovation, Roman

The First Microbiologist

An illustration of Verro, the subject of today’s article. Source: Wikicommons

The Romans are recognised worldwide for their military achievements. At its height the Roman Empire reached five million square kilometres under Emperor Trajan, making it one of the largest empires in history.

Although often overshadowed by the Greeks in terms of technological advancements of the period, the Romans did make some significant progress in the field of the sciences. Many of the educated elite of the Roman Empire went on to discover and theories about things only proven centuries later. Marcus Terentius Varro, henceforth Varro, was one such example.

Ceasar’s Civil War

Varro was born in Rieti, a city in the heart of the Roman Republic close to Rome. This meant that as the Romans saw success in their conquering of Europe and thus developed their capital, Varro got to enjoy some of the luxuries that come with such rapid expansion.

Varro was even more fortunate than the average citizen of Rieti as he was born into a family of “Equites”, the name given to the Roman knights. Due to his privileged status within Roman society, Varro received some of the highest quality of education available to Roman citizens at the time. Although his love for learning didn’t immediately shine through this process surely sparked his interest in the sciences.

Map showing areas of the Roman Empire controlled by the different sides of the civil war. Source: Wikicommons

When Varro reached the age of 67 the civil war between Julius Cesar and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, also known as Pompey, ignited. The son of Roman knights found himself on Pompey’s side as the leader of one of his armies. Pompey went on to lose the civil war against Ceasar leading to all of Pompey’s old allies either being executed, exiled, or in very select cases, pardoned.

Varro became one of these very select cases as Caesar decided to pardon him and even make him the head of the public library of Rome in 47 BC. As the Republic gave way to the Empire, Varro would discover his love for studying and writing.

After gaining the favour of the next leader of Rome, Emperor Augustus, Varro went on to pursue his passion under the wing of Roman philologist Lucius Aelius Stilo, henceforth Stilo. With the help of Stilo, Varro produced around 74 works written in around 620 books according to a modern estimate. We, unfortunately, do not have an exact number as many of his works were lost. Of these works, one key one survived the ages until today. This work will be the focus of our article today.

“Minute creatures”

Varro’s works touched upon most areas intellectuals of that era would explore and write about. Of these areas, biology was one which was rarely talked about due to its perceived link to the lower class through farming and animal husbandry. Even so, Verro took an interest in the subject. Through his work, he came up with the theory that there are minuscule creatures which we cannot see which cause disease after entering through our nose and mouth. He describes this in this quote:

“There are bred certain minute creatures which cannot be seen by the eyes, but which float in the air and enter the body through the mouth and nose and cause serious diseases.”

This means that not only did Varro theorise about the existence of microbes around 2000 years before their official discovery but he also theorised that the main ways these microbes enter the body are through the nose and mouth. Varro also thought that these “minute creatures” travelled through the air and water, an impressive feat as the only way to predict such a thing would be to look at water with the best magnifying technology at the time. Even then these “minute creatures” could be thought of as particles of dirt in the water rather than something which leads to disease.

Old technology, modern theories

I find it very impressive that a scientist more than 2000 years ago was able to come up with a theory which was explained nearly two millennia later. When looking back at ancient and medieval history, it is very surprising to find that, even back then, our ancestors knew more about the world than we think.

The most impressive and well known of such examples would have to be Eratosthenes, a Greek polymath who worked out the circumference of the earth with a 1.4% error margin only 100 years before Varro was born. When looking at the past we must remember that even back then, our ancestors were curious and curiosity will always lead to surprising discoveries!