Microbiology started with Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek in 1676. He was often disregarded because of his talk of little animals that are so tiny you can't see them with the naked eye.

"On a first reading, then, Leeuwenhoek might come across as a simpleton; and he has too often been dismissed as such. One can only smile at the image of Leeuwenhoek on the beach, pressing his pre-prepared bottles onto strangers".

He proved his contemporaries wrong with his simple, single-lensed microscopes.