The Leeuwenhoek Lecture, 1988, Antoni Van Leeuwenhoek 1632-1723

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The Leeuwenhoek Lecture on microbiology has been delivered annually since 1950 by a succession of distinguished research scientists and so perhaps I may be excused the pious duty of speaking of its founder, Mr George Gabb. But I cannot pass by this opportunity to recall that great English student of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, Clifford Dobell (1886—1949). Dobell was, it seems, a strange and lonely figure; not liked by all his colleagues, of a difficult and impatient temperament, but a scientific worker of the highest excellence. It is not for me to summarize from Obituary notices his researches upon protozoa, amoeba and bacteria; I need only stress that Dobell did more than any man of his time to revive interest in Leeuwenhoek’s investigations, which he rediscovered in the early years of this century. Dobell’s painstaking yet lively monograph—he compared the decipherment of Leeuwenhoek’s Dutch manuscripts to that of the Rosetta stone—is a perennial classic; one of the finest in our language upon an individual scientist (1). Let me now only add that Dobell’s curious essay in on Dr O. is the only funny article in a somewhat sombre journal; I will not spoil the fun by disclosing the sense of Dobell’s odd title (2).

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: