All In A Drop by Lori Alexander

Antony van Leeuwenhoek lives in the town of Delft, Netherlands. It is a place of tree-lined canals and busy merchants. Antony lives at a time which comes to be known as the Golden Age for the Netherlands. The Dutch own the largest fleet of ships  in the world and travel to many countries bringing in many goods from Africa, North America and Asia.

Antony's family are tradesmen: his grandfather was a beer brewer and his father makes wicker baskets used to transport fragile goods on the ships.

Antony's father dies when is he is quite young. With his mother's remarriage, he is sent, at the age of only eight to a boarding school outside of Delft.

At the age of fourteen, his schooling now finished, Antony moves to Benthuizen to live with his uncle. He sends Antony to Amsterdam to train in a linen's merchant's shop. In Amsterdam, Antony meets people from different countries and cultures.

For six years, Antony works as an apprentice to a linen merchant. Finally ready to start his own business, he moves back to Delft in 1654. He is only twenty-two years old and is now a draper, a person who sells cloth.

To check the quality of the cloth he sells, Antony uses a magnifying glass that helps him to see the number of threads in a swatch of cloth.

In 1668, a trip to London, England for vacation changes the course of Antony's life. While in London, he learns about the work of Robert Hooke, an English scientist who uses a microscope to view objects very closely. Hooke has written a book called Micrographia about what he's seen through his microscope. Although Antony cannot read Hooke's book because it's written in English, the pictures intrigue him.

When Antony returns home to the Netherlands, he decides to build his own microscope. This microscope is different from Hooke's. It has a pea-size lens held between two small brass rectangles and a screw mount to hold a specimen. His first subject is a bit of moldy bread. But what Antony sees is more detailed than the picture in Robert Hooke's Micrographia.

After viewing many different specimens through his microscopes, (each specimen is mounted on its own microscope), Antony decides to show his work to a friend, Reinier de Graaf, a scientist who encourages him to share his findings with the Royal Society in London. At first scientists are skeptical because Antony is unknown to them but they find his observations interesting and they request that he write them each time makes a new observation.

This is thrilling for Antony and he begins his work in earnest, hiring a local artist to draw what he sees in each of his microscopes. But Antony's most famous discovery is yet to come. It is one that one hundred years after his death would lead scientists to make important discoveries about disease.

Discussion

All In A Drop chronicles the important work of Antony van Leeuwenhoek, now considered the Father of Microbiology. Written in third person, Alexander brings to life Antony's efforts to learn about the hidden world that surrounds all of us. His work with what was a relatively new instrument called the microscope demonstrated that an  invisible and unknown world hidden from human eyes existed. This  microscopic was difficult for scientists living in Antony's era to fully comprehend.

 In the chapter, The Father of Microbiology, Alexander considers how Antony's discovery of hidden organisms was to eventually play an important role in medicine. Unfortunately, few scientists in Antony's time, including Antony himself failed to recognize just how important this hidden world of microbes was to the health of mankind. It would be one hundred years before the connection between microbes and disease would be made, allowing doctors to save millions of lives. This delay Alexander believes was likely partly the fault of Antony who worked alone, had no rigorous scientific training, and kept his methods a secret. He never passed on his knowledge through lectures or teaching, although his letters were published in the oldest scientific journal, Philosophical Transactions. Nevertheless, as Alexander writes, "...the work Antony did with microscopes forever changed the way we see the world around us."

Alexander's third person narrative is straightforward, easy to follow and enhanced by the illustrations of Vivien Mildenberger which were rendered in pastels, watercolours and coloured pencil. Included are relevant photographs, a Timeline of Events, a Glossary, an Author's Note which explains the importance of Antony van Leeuwenhoek's work, Source Notes and a Selected Bibliography for further reading. This short chapter book is also indexed. A great introduction to microbiology for young readers.


Book Details:

All In A Drop: How Antony van Leeuwenhoek Discovered an Invisible World by Lori Alexander
New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company    2019
93 pp.


Image credit: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Antonie-van-Leeuwenhoek/images-videos#/media/1/334699/12567

Galen and the Gateway to Medicine by Jeanne Bendick

Jeanne Bendick was a well known author of many books, most of them focused on science. Jeanne was born in 1919 in New York City. Her career as an illustrator began while attending the Parsons School of Design. During this time she created illustrations for the children's magazine, Jack and Jill. After graduating in 1939, with the start of World War II, both Jeanne and  her husband became part of the war effort. She joined the American Woman's Voluntary Services while her husband enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Force.

Jeanne wrote about many different topics with an appealing simplicity. "Jeanne Bendick had a remarkable ability through her straightforward writing and illustration to present complex scientific concepts in a form that was understandable by children." She was part of a group of three authors who wrote a science textbook for elementary school-aged children, Jeanne's last book, Herodotus and the Road to History was published in 2009 when she was ninety-one!! Jeanne was writing books on science at a time when there were few women in the science disciplines. Jeanne passed away on March 14, 2014 at the age of ninety-five.

Jeanne's book, Galen and the Gateway to Medicine traces the life and achievements of Galen, doctor to the Roman emperors. Galen was born in 129 AD in the Greek city of Pergamum during the reign of Emperor Hadrian. At the time of Galen's birth, Pergamum was a city within the Roman empire which included all of "the lands around the Mediterranean Sea, much of Europe (including England), part of Africa, the whole Middle East and some of Asia.

Little is known about Galen's family except that his father was Nicon, a famous engineer and architect who "was also a mathematician, a philosopher, an astronomer and a botanist." Nicon taught Galen during his early childhood and then he was sent to study in school as other Greek youths did. As a student, Galen studied history, philosophy, science and geometry. He especially loved math.

Galen's study of medicine began at the Temple of Aesculapius in Pergamum. Aesculapius was the Greek god of medicine, the first physician. After completing his studies at the Aesculapium, and with the death of his father, Galen decided to travel and study medical practices in other places. First he travelled to Smyrna where he studied with Pelops, a famous physician.  Then he continued on to Corinth and from there travelled to Alexandria, Egypt to the most famous medical school in the ancient world, The Museum. It was here that Galen developed many of his ideas about the human body and how it worked. Although some of his theories were very wrong, "Galen was trying to put together what he observed into a theory that explained how the parts of the human body functioned together as an interconnected system."

After nine years away, Galen returned to Pergamum where he worked as a physician to the gladiators in his home city. But his greatest adventures lay in the greatest city at that time, Rome. It was here Galen's reputation as a great physician came to be known throughout the Roman world and his work passed down through the centuries.

Discussion

Galen and the Gateway to Medicine traces Galen's path to becoming the most respected physician of his time, one whose writings on the human body were considered definitive for the next 1500 years!

The author incorporates historical information into each phase of Galen's interesting life in a way that is engaging and yet informative for younger readers. For example, at the beginning of the book, readers are given a detailed picture of what life would have been like for a young Galen in second century Pergamum. Everything from what Galen might have had for breakfast to the foods found at the market, the types of houses in Pergamum to descriptions of the gymnasium and the baths. In describing Galen's studies in school in Pergamum, readers are introduced to many famous historical figures including Herodotus, Plato, and Aristotle.

When Galen attends medical school at the medical school at the Temple of Aesculapius Bendick describes how the Greeks treated illness, their beliefs about how the human body functioned and how the number four, an important number to the Greeks, influenced the way they viewed the natural world around them.

Bendick uses Galen's travels to Smyrna, Egypt and Rome to describe modes of transportation, the tools a physician might use in his practice, life in Alexandria - a great center of learning in Galen's time, and the gladiators in Rome. In describing Galen's life in Rome, Bendick covers many aspects of life in the Roman Empire in the second century including what it meant to practice medicine and pharmacology during this era. The author also cover's

The chapter "After Galen" explores the advances made in medicine, almost fifteen hundred years after Galen's death. Galen's ideas about the human body and illness were considered untouchable for generations, until the Middle Ages. Bendick explores what led to rethinking Galen's ideas in the Renaissance.

Galen and the Gateway to Medicine is a fascinating exploration into the history of medicine. Bendick writes in an easy style that flows naturally from one chapter to the next. The text is accompanied by the author's hand drawn maps and line illustrations and portraits. A worthwhile read for those interested in the history of science and medicine.

Book Details:

Galen and the Gateway to Medicine by Jeanne Bendick
Bathgate, ND: Bethlehem Books Ignatius Press   2002
131 pp.