Anton Van Leeuwenhoek - Biography of Anton Van Leeuwenhoek: Germs Microscopes and Networks for Advocacy

I have been using germs as a key indicator of what I mean about the leaps in "seeing" does to strategy. I have been talking about the impact microscopes had on germ theory and germ strategy.

"Geronimo Fracastorio (an Italian poet and physician, 1483 - 1553) of Verona, published a work (De Contagionibus et Contagiosis Morbis, et eorum Curatione) in Venice in 1546 which contained the first statement of the true nature of contagion, infection, or disease organisms, and of the modes of transmission of infectious disease. He divided diseases into those which infect by immediate contact, through intermediate agents, and at a distance through the air. Organisms which cause disease, called seminaria contagionum,... These particles, too small to be seen, were capable of reproduction in appropriate media, and became pathogenic through the action of animal heat. Thus Fracastorio, in the middle of the sixteenth century, gave us an outline of morbid processes in terms of microbiology."

Hundred and a handful of years later along comes Anton van Leeuwenhoek of Holland (1632-1723)
the father of microscopy. Anton works tiny lenses to great curvature. He was the first to see and describe bacteria, yeast plants, the teeming life in a drop of water, and the circulation of blood corpuscles in capillaries.

It takes 200 (1860's) years before Pasteur 'discovered' germ theory connecting the visualization of the germ with the theory and then working with the two together designing strategies to contain germs.

On top of that, it takes another dozen years before science accepted the lessons learned from Pasteur (and his recommendations to boil instruments) to start sterilizing operating room environments. (1897 Johnson & Johnson pioneers suture sterilization.)

* 1546 "Knew" Germs Existed
* 1660s Could See Germs in Microscope
* 1860S See the Germs and design Strategies based on new vision
* 1900s Wide spread adaption of Germ treatments

In some ways, we are in the same space today. We have known all along that networks are powerful. Old Boy networks, political family networks, alumni networks. etc. Networks deliver power to those participating. However, 1980's Valdis Krebs and others started to pioneer modern social network mapping giving us the opportunity to "see" the networks for the first time. We could start to map and measuring the responses over time.

We are just now at the point where we can begin to design network strategies and watch campaigns and issue work take advantage of the network treatments the theorists tell us will work. Any help from the science geeks that read this might be helpful in fluching out this story.