19 / 92
350
YEARS
OF
SCIENCE
19
© Juulijs - Fotolia
© Dorling Kindersley ltd - Alamy
These two eminent scientists definitively rejected the spontaneous
generation hypothesis and, with their many disciples, identified the
agents responsible for diseases that had been devastating huma-
nity for millenia, such as plague, cholera or tuberculosis. They
paved the way for the development of various tools for diagnosis,
therapeutics and, above all, prevention: vaccines.
© Photo Researchers, Inc - Alamy
© Juulijs - Fotolia
© Dorling Kindersley ltd - Alamy
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723)
and the beginning of microbiology
Replica of Leeuwenhoek's microscope
"Animalcules" detected in
human saliva, 1675
© From B.Eymann - Académie des sciences