Question: who is the father of microbiology?

Erin Pallott answered on 8 Feb 2024:

Everyone has mentioned a lot of the key people! Antonie van Leeuwenhoek invented the first microscope. He used it to observe tiny moving creatures in the 1670s which he called animacules. These animacules were microorganisms! We just didn’t know it yet!

It wouldn’t be until much later that we learned and accepted that microorganisms can spread disease (germ theory). Louis Pasteur is credited with proving/confirming this germ theory, but there were other people who tried to get this across, when other medics and scientists assumed disease still came from “bad air”.

Another important person is Ignaz Semmelweis. He was a Hungarian doctor who noticed that women coming into hospitals to give birth were dying more when their doctors had been in contact with people with fever and disease. He had realised that the disease was contagious! He suggested that handwashing would prevent disease. He was of course right, but at the time this was not accepted. He continued fighting for handwashing and better hygiene all his life, and he was even taken to an insane asylum where he sadly died. Now that we know better, he is known as the saviour of mothers.

There are lots more people who were important to starting and understanding microbiology. John Snow (father of epidemiology) is another important person who made his discoveries about disease in London!