TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY ®  •  TODAYINSCI ®
Celebrating 24 Years on the Web
Find science on or your birthday

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “Dangerous... to take shelter under a tree, during a thunder-gust. It has been fatal to many, both men and beasts.”
more quiz questions >>
Thumbnail of Rufus Porter (source)
Rufus Porter
(1 May 1792 - 13 Aug 1884)

American editor and inventor who put out the first issue of Scientific American on 28 Aug 1845. As an inventor, he had little business sense, but held over 100 patents.


Rufus Porter - Animalculae…hideous forms…with malignant and voracious propensities

Illustrated Quote - Medium (500 x 350 px)

Rufus Porter quote Animalculae…hideous forms…with malignant and voracious propensities
From paragraph in Scientific American (1846) urging the use of water filters. (source)
Copepod, stained, magnified 200x 0.5mm, reduced as thumbnail image
Copepod (source)
“Minute living animals … too small for observation, even with a microscope … in water that has been long stagnant … appear not only in hideous forms, but with malignant and voracious propensities.”
— Rufus Porter
From Scientific American, (10 Oct 1846).

More Rufus Porter quotes on science >>

Fanciful illustration of “Animalculae” from Scientific American (1846)
Fanciful illustration of “Animalculae” from Scientific American (1846) (source)
Context of Rufus Porter's quote on Animalculae and water filters

A paragraph in the second volume of Scientific American (10 Oct 1846) is titled 'Animalculae in Water.' Since it has no specific attribution as to the writer, the Webmaster assumes that would be Rufus Porter, the editor of the magazine at the time. As he admits, he was no doubt stimulated to discuss the tiny animal life in drinking water because elsewhere in the issue, he described two new inventions of water filters. No doubt the vendors were happy for the recognition. In truth, the favour was to the reader, because there was awareness that any contamination in water needed to be avoided. In full, he wrote:

“The fact is generally known that nearly all liquids contain a variety of minute living animals, though in some they are too small for observation, even with a microscope. In others, especially in water that has been long stagnant, these animals appear not only in hideous forms, but with malignant and voracious propensities. The print at the head of this article purports to be a microscopic representation of a single drop of such water, with the various animals therein, and some of the inventors and venders of the various improved filters for the Croton water, would have no objection to the prevalence of the opinion that this water contains all the variety of monsters represented in this cut. But the fact is far otherwise; and it is doubtful whether these animals could frequently be detected in the Croton water, with the best solar microscope. Nevertheless, the fact is readily and clearly established that the Croton water contains a quantity of deleterious matter, which is arrested by the filters; and, on this account, we cheerfully and heartily recommend the adoption of filters by all who use this water, from either the public or private hydrants. To this end we would call the special attention of our city readers to the improved filters noticed under the head of ‘New Inventions.’”

Bacteria in water had been known since the 17th century when Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, a talented lens grinder, designed a single lens microscope and made close examinations of tiny life forms.

“Croton water” referred to the public water supply for New York City, coming from the reservoir formed behind a dam built in 1842 on the Croton River. It was already filtered through a municipal water works, so the writer defended its quality, though some “deleterious material” could yet be filtered out.

There were two filters to which Porter alluded. They were under a heading of “NEW INVENTIONS”:

“Lewis's Reversible Faucet Filters - Highly favorable as our opinion may be of the several excellent filters which have been introduced, we cannot avoid giving a preference to the one recently invented by Mr. S. H. Lewis. It consists of a very neat faucet, calculated to be attached to a common Croton or other hydrant, and in connection with the faucet key, is a circular chamber, three inches in diameter, within which is a circular filter consisting of a quantity of cotton cloth, flannel sponge or porous porcelain (which is preferred) compressed between two perforated metallic disks: and the faucet key is so constructed that by turning it to the right, the water is permitted to flow through the filter in one direction; but its course is reversed and it is made to flow in the opposite direction through the filter by turning the key to the left. The filter is thus cleansed at pleasure without any trouble, on examination of the filter or chamber. They may be seen at 28½ Broadway.

West's Cheap and Convenient Filter - For the thousands of families in this city whose houses are not furnished with the Croton water-pipes, a neat portable filter, recently invented by Mr. N. West, of this city, is as near perfection, in convenience and utility, as could be furnished for the low price of one dollar, and should find a place in every house or shop where the Croton water is used. It consists of two conical pails, one within the other; the first is furnished with an efficient filter at the bottom thereof; and the other has a faucet, by which the water is drawn off as occasion requires. They may be found at 156 Delancy street.”

Quotes by modern microscopist Jack Longino

Quotes by pioneer microscopist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek

More quotes on | Animalcule | Microscope | Microbiology | Water | Bacteria | Monster


Context by Webmaster, with quotes and “Animalculae” image from Scientific American (10 Oct 1846), 22 and 19. (source)


See also:
  • Science Quotes by Rufus Porter.
  • 1 May - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Porter's birth.
  • Rufus Porter - context of quote Animalculae…hideous forms…with malignant and voracious propensities - Large image (800 x 600 px)

Nature bears long with those who wrong her. She is patient under abuse. But when abuse has gone too far, when the time of reckoning finally comes, she is equally slow to be appeased and to turn away her wrath. (1882) -- Nathaniel Egleston, who was writing then about deforestation, but speaks equally well about the danger of climate change today.
Carl Sagan Thumbnail Carl Sagan: In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) ...(more by Sagan)

Albert Einstein: I used to wonder how it comes about that the electron is negative. Negative-positive—these are perfectly symmetric in physics. There is no reason whatever to prefer one to the other. Then why is the electron negative? I thought about this for a long time and at last all I could think was “It won the fight!” ...(more by Einstein)

Richard Feynman: It is the facts that matter, not the proofs. Physics can progress without the proofs, but we can't go on without the facts ... if the facts are right, then the proofs are a matter of playing around with the algebra correctly. ...(more by Feynman)
Quotations by:Albert EinsteinIsaac NewtonLord KelvinCharles DarwinSrinivasa RamanujanCarl SaganFlorence NightingaleThomas EdisonAristotleMarie CurieBenjamin FranklinWinston ChurchillGalileo GalileiSigmund FreudRobert BunsenLouis PasteurTheodore RooseveltAbraham LincolnRonald ReaganLeonardo DaVinciMichio KakuKarl PopperJohann GoetheRobert OppenheimerCharles Kettering  ... (more people)

Quotations about:Atomic  BombBiologyChemistryDeforestationEngineeringAnatomyAstronomyBacteriaBiochemistryBotanyConservationDinosaurEnvironmentFractalGeneticsGeologyHistory of ScienceInventionJupiterKnowledgeLoveMathematicsMeasurementMedicineNatural ResourceOrganic ChemistryPhysicsPhysicianQuantum TheoryResearchScience and ArtTeacherTechnologyUniverseVolcanoVirusWind PowerWomen ScientistsX-RaysYouthZoology  ... (more topics)

Thank you for sharing.
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton


by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing.
Today in Science History
Sign up for Newsletter
with quiz, quotes and more.