ABSTRACT
The first detailed description of a microorganism was done by Robert Hooke (1635-1703) in the book Micrographia (1664), in which he wrote about “the first principles of vegetation arising from putrefaction” to describe fungus growth on different vegetable and animal materials. Inspired by Hooke’s Micrographia, approximately 10 years later, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) observed the microbial content, including bacteria, of different substances; these single-celled organisms were referred as “wee animalcules” (Gest, 2004; Madigan et al., 2012). Because of van Leeuwenhoek’s discoveries, he is considered the father of microbiology. Other scientists made great achievements with a microscope. Ferdinand Cohn (1828-1898), for example, was interested in unicellular algae, sulfur-oxidizing bacteria and discovered endospore-forming bacteria; he also promoted the taxonomy of bacteria, being considered the founder of bacteriology (Drews, 2000).
