The Microcosmos of the 1800s | The Story of Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg — Transcript

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1. 0:08When scientists began observing microbes, many of the tools that we rely on today, of course,
2. 0:14had not yet been invented.
3. 0:16Now, microscopes existed, but they were generally simpler tools.
4. 0:20And they also, of course, lacked cameras that could take a snapshot of the organisms and
5. 0:25objects being so closely watched.
6. 0:28Still, the scientists were exploring the uncharted territory of the microcosmos, and words alone
7. 0:36would not suffice to describe the strange beings they uncovered.
8. 0:41So early microscopic research was not just a scientific endeavor, it was an artistic
9. 0:47one, relying on illustrations of diatoms and rotifers and other creatures that could then
10. 0:54be disseminated to those who were curious to see these new wonders.
11. 1:00One of the most impressive collections of microbial illustrations was drawn by Christian
12. 1:06Gottfried Ehrenberg, a German naturalist in the 19th century who amassed thousands and
13. 1:14thousands of geological and biological samples, and who in turn produced thousands of sketches
14. 1:20based on the observations he made under the microscope.
15. 1:24Today, we will be taking a bit of a turn from our normal content, shifting our focus from
16. 1:30microbes to a scientist whose extensive documentation of them influenced the fields of microbiology
17. 1:38and micropaleontology.
18. 1:41We're going to be talking about Ehrenberg's life while showing you his drawings, which
19. 1:47come from the collection of his works maintained at the Museum of Natural History in Berlin.
20. 1:53And we will also share our own videos of those same species so you can see how the details
21. 2:00he sketched out by hand stack up against what our cameras can record from our microscopes
22. 2:06today.
23. 2:08So let's start with the early days of Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg's scientific career.
24. 2:14Born in 1795, Ehrenberg earned his doctorate in 1818 from the University of Berlin.
25. 2:21In his thesis, he described 250 species of fungi from around the city, but most notable
26. 2:29was his observation that fungi are borne from spores
27. 2:34and not--as many theorized at the time--spontaneously generated.
28. 2:39Two years later, Ehrenberg joined an archaeological expedition to Egypt that would end up somewhat
29. 2:46disastrous.
30. 2:47At one point, the funders claimed to have "lost" the money meant for the travelers.
31. 2:53Then, one of Ehrenberg's compatriots almost died from a snake bite.
32. 2:58And then later actually died of Typhus.
33. 3:01Despite the physical and emotional trials, Ehrenberg was able to send tens of thousands
34. 3:07of animal, plant, and rock samples to Germany.
35. 3:11Except that when he returned home five years later, many of those samples had been damaged
36. 3:17and another bunch had been sold.
37. 3:20This was a discouraging outcome.
38. 3:23But when Ehrenberg was offered the chance to join the esteemed naturalist Alexander
39. 3:28Humboldt on an expedition to Russia and Siberia in 1829, he seized the opportunity.
40. 3:34Fortunately, this expedition turned out to be much less calamitous.
41. 3:40Both of these expeditions provided Ehrenberg with a wealth of samples to draw from in his
42. 3:46study of the natural world.
43. 3:48And more importantly, they would shape his fascinations with microbes, which he called
44. 3:54"Infusoria."
45. 3:58Ehrenberg was loyal to his microscope, relying on the same one for decades to study the "Infusoria"
46. 4:07sampled from various waters.
47. 4:09He uncovered some of the ways these little known creatures were connected with the larger
48. 4:14world they lived in, like the planktonic microorganisms he realized were the source of phosphorescence
49. 4:21in the Red Sea, and the diatoms whose silica casings became part of the Earth.
50. 4:31Now many of the samples he observed under the microscope were embedded into mica and
51. 4:36covered in Canada balsam.
52. 4:39Magnifying his various specimens 300x, Ehrenberg drew out what he saw with a fine grey pencil,sometimes
53. 4:48adding pigment using watercolor.
54. 4:52But no man can be correct all the time, and Ehrenberg’s refusal to update his microscope
55. 4:58may have led to one of his most notable mistakes.
56. 5:03He thought that all of the organisms he observed must be animals, even the unicellular ones.
57. 5:09In some cases, what he claimed were eggs and sexual organs were later revealed to be nuclei.
58. 5:16Still, mistakes aside, his work further solidified the study of Infusoria, and his collections
59. 5:24and remarks on microbial fossils paved the way for micropaleontology.
60. 5:30While Ehrenberg's later expeditions were not quite as distant as his first two, this was
61. 5:35an age where naturalists were venturing all over the globe to gather samples.
62. 5:40And Ehrenberg happened to be corresponding with quite a few of those naturalists.
63. 5:46They would send him bits of living things, rock, soil, and more from just about everywhere.
64. 5:53It's like a postcard for your naturalist pen pal.
65. 5:56Charles Darwin even sent him dust that had blown on to his ship near the Cape Verde islands.
66. 6:02In 1854, Ehrenberg published one of his most famous works: Mikrogeologie.
67. 6:08I don’t speak German so I could just say Microgeology.
68. 6:12It’s a 2-volume text that compiled observations on North American and European sediments and
69. 6:19the microbes they housed.
70. 6:21The book would cost you $72, which was not cheap in 1854, but it might be worth it for
71. 6:294,000 of these illustrations.
72. 6:38Ehrenberg died in 1867, after which his collection was eventually moved to the Museum of Natural
73. 6:45History in Berlin.
74. 6:46Part of the collection's value lies in just how vast it is, both in the types of samples
75. 6:53it contains and the geographical range they come from.
76. 6:58In total, there are more than 40,000 microscope sample preparations, thousands of specimens
77. 7:04and illustrations, and hundreds of letters.
78. 7:07His daughter Clara helped with both the drawings and compiling an index to link all these samples
79. 7:14together, which has proven essential in making sense of his immense work.
80. 7:20But the knowledge contained in this collection would become hard to reach for some time.
81. 7:26For decades, a mix of war, politics, and finances kept it inaccessible.
82. 7:31It was even at one point believed to be lost.
83. 7:36Fortunately, that was not true, and in the late 1960s, curators began to restore it.
84. 7:44Progress was slow and briefly threatened when in 1982, a fire broke out in the museum's
85. 7:50roof, close to where the collection was stored.
86. 7:53The museum curators responded quickly to save it, and ultimately these historical documents
87. 7:59survived with only a little water damage.
88. 8:02And through all of these dire situations, the curators persevered in their intention
89. 8:07to make the collection accessible.
90. 8:09In 1998, they released a CD-ROM containing scanned images of the illustrations, letters,
91. 8:17and indexes.
92. 8:19And now, if you want to explore the images at your leisure, the museum has made them
93. 8:23available to download on their website.
94. 8:26And why wouldn’t you?
95. 8:28So there’s a link in the description.
96. 8:30The more recent availability of the collection has inspired more scientific work.
97. 8:35A group of Brazilian scientists studied Ehrenberg's records on diatom samples taken from their
98. 8:42country, essentially repatriating data and allowing for a study of biodiversity across
99. 8:48time.
100. 8:50Another group of researchers extracted and examined bacteria from some of Darwin's dust
101. 8:55samples, confirming just how resilient bacteria can be.
102. 8:59Technology, of course, has given us new ways to document and share the microbial world.
103. 9:07One of the coolest parts of our job as we assemble each episode of Journey to the Microcosmos
104. 9:12is that we get to spend so much time watching microbes and appreciating their beauty, a
105. 9:19pursuit that Ehrenberg could surely relate to.
106. 9:23But the fact that we can record what we see on video is built on advances in microscopes
107. 9:29and cameras.
108. 9:30Moreover, when we want to share what we see with the world, we don't have to send you
109. 9:35images via mail or compile them over two decades.
110. 9:40We just hit a button on YouTube, and the whole world can watch if it chooses.
111. 9:45That same technological progress has made Ehrenberg's collection more accessible.
112. 9:50In an age of big data, his illustrations and his documents are a physical trove of information
113. 9:57whose promise we're still understanding.
114. 10:00It's a common mistake to think of science and art as separate endeavors, but they're
115. 10:07linked by creativity and by the human desire to make sense of the world around us.
116. 10:13Time and invention have only given us more ways to engage science and art together, and
117. 10:20in the same way that we've found beauty and meaning in the stars above us, there are also
118. 10:26answers in the infusoria that surrounds.
119. 10:34Thank you for coming on this journey with us as we explore the unseen world that surrounds us.
120. 10:40Thank you to all of the curators who protected Ehrenberg’s work, and also, hey, thanks
121. 10:45to Ehrenberg himself.
122. 10:46I know he’s not around to hear it, but his work is appreciated.
123. 10:51And of course thank you to all of the people whose names are on the screen right now.
124. 10:56If you like this show, they’re the reason it can exist.
125. 10:59They are our supporters on Patreon.
126. 11:01If you would like to join them, check out patreon.com/journeytomicro.
127. 11:06There’s a link in the description.
128. 11:08If you want to see more from our Master of Microscopes James, you can check out Jam and
129. 11:12Germs on Instagram.
130. 11:13And if you want to see more from us every week, just go to youtube.com/microcosmos to
131. 11:19see what we’ve been up to.