The microscope in the Dutch Republic
Subtitle: the shaping of discovery
By: Edward G. Ruestow.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1996
Place of publication: Cambridge [England]; New York, NY, USA
Language: eng
Number of pages: 348
Subjects: Leeuwenhoek, Antoni van, 1632-1723.; Swammerdam, Jan, 1637-1680.; Microscopes -- Netherlands -- History -- 17th century.
Description: Emphasizing the work of Jan Swammerdam and Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, The Microscope in the Dutch Republic dissects the social, cultural, and emotional circumstances that shaped early microscopic discovery. Arguing that the aspects of seventeenth-century Dutch culture widely assumed to have favored the lens actually impeded its serious use, Ruestow focuses on social contexts and on Swammerdam and Leeuwenhoek's social sensibilities as the key source of their commitment to the new instrument.

He also analyzes how they drew upon their cultural background to vest microscopic images with meaning, though with strikingly different emphases. Having underscored how their influential contributions to the debates over generation also illustrated the problematic role of early microscopic observations, Ruestow concludes with reflections on the eighteenth-century decline and the nineteenth-century resurgence of microscopic research and the impact of institutionalization.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 305-337) and index.