舊人舊事舊書

The origins of microbiology (other than the general knowledge of fermented foods which existed worldwide since ancient times) can be traced back to the invention of the compound microscope in the late 1500s. This relatively simple tool soon revolutionized man's knowledge of the heretofore invisible microbial world. In 1675 the Dutch merchant Anton van Leeuwenhoek, the greatest of the early microscopists, saw and reported one-celled organisms, which he called "animacules." (Today they are called "protozoa.") The discovery electrified the scientific world of the time. Then in 1680, using a microscope that magnified the diameter of each object 300-fold, he looked at yeast and found them to consist of tiny spheroids. While the protozoa were clearly alive, the yeast did not appear to be. No connection was drawn between the existence of these tiny organisms and the well known phenomenon of fermentation. So for 150 years after van Leeuwenhoek's pioneering observations, it was hardly thought that these minute organisms could be important enough to deserve serious study.


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'Modern devotion', started by Geert Groote, a burgher of Deventer, toward the end of the 14th century. From his work two kinds of communities formed, the Brethren of the Common Life, consisting mainly of laymen, as well as monasteries in the area of Windesheim, of the order of the regular Augustinian canons. Its emphasis were devoted to tending the sick and other works of charity, but especially to instruction and the art of writing. (cmp. the Franciscan and Dominican orders emphasized preaching.)

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--James Clerk Maxwell, November 1852¹

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--James Clerk Maxwell


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Karl Marx in New York Daily Tribune
Articles On China, 1853-1860
Revolution in China and In Europe
June 14, 1853

A most profound yet fantastic speculator on the principles which govern the movements of Humanity was wont to extol as one of the ruling secrets of nature what he called the law of the contact of extremes. The homely proverb that "extremes meet" was, in his view, a grand and potent truth in every sphere of life; an axiom with which the philosopher could as little dispense as the astronomer with the laws of Kepler or the great discovery of Newton.¹


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Based on Erasmus and the Age of Reformation by Johan Huizinga (1892-1945)

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嚴嘉樂 (1710年10月24日)

在九月七日，總督就派了一名軍官到澳門來做我們的嚮導。在這段時間裡，他們為我縫製了中國衣服，九月四日替我減了中式頭髮。