©2001 Jon Youngblood Unity Through Understanding A Guidebook for the Recently Alive

Part Two: Physics

Chapter Seven: The Very, Very Small

7.1 Microbial World

For most of our collective time on earth it was simply not a question as to what the causes of disease and disability were. They were the means by which man was punished for being offensive in the eyes of God. Or in more ancient times as in other cultures it was the working of magic by either a fellow human, or by any one of a myriad of Other World denizens. 

In an odd twist of fate, these "simple" ancestors of ours turned out to be not to too off base. The denizens of this Other World of which we could not see were to be found and seen centuries into the future as microbes. Although these microbes were not the infliction of malevolence by man or God, in fact they turn out to be quite indifferent to man and his actions, they were nonetheless an invisible force to be dealt with. Capable of wiping out vast numbers of our ancestors, we began to observe, guess, test, and treat certain afflictions caused by these unwanted guests dwelling inside our earthly temple.

The earliest devises used to "see" into this other world of the very small was nothing more sophisticated than a drop of water placed into a small hole. Viewing an object under the water droplet one would see a magnified image. And the quest began.

A man called Anton Van Leeuwenhoek, who used glass, carefully ground, to make a magnifying glass, invented the first real microscope in the late 1600s.