The Van Leeuwenhoek Specimens

In May 1674 the pioneer Dutch microscopist Antony van Leeuwenhoek prepared a series of sections of plant and animal material. They were cut by hand, using an open razor, and were carefully enclosed in small paper packets or envelopes. These in turn he put into a larger envelope which was fixed to a sheet of notepaper. On 1 June 1674 van Leeuwenhoek wrote a letter to the Royal Society’s then Secretary, Henry Oldenburg, and the final page of this epistle was the sheet that bore the hand-made paper envelopes in which these historic specimens were secreted.