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Abstract

In the late 19th century bacteriology was a predominantly practical discipline. Beijerinck was among the few workers who engaged in pure microbiological research at this time. He is usually regarded as the 'founding father' of the Delft tradition in chemical bacteriology. Beijerinck's focus, however, was not chemical bacteriology, but heredity and variability in microorganisms. His pertinent views provide an instance of the 19th-century 'developmental' view of heredity and evolution. As for the wider context of Beijerinck's work, there are important similarities between Beijerinck and Hugo de Vries. In the 1890s de Vries became a spokesman for the promotion of pure science as the motor of social progress. His final aim was the improvement of practice. According to Beijerinck, successful practice in microbiology also hinged upon detailed knowledge of heredity and variability. Beijerinck and de Vries were agreed however that scientific research would remain pure; the benefits for practice would follow automatically. Beijerinck did not, decades ahead of others, start a tradition in bacterial chemistry. Nor should he be seen as an early worker groping unsuccessfully around in the confused field of bacterial genetics. In his aproach and problem choice he followed contemporary examples, and he worked within the context of an ideology that was shared by the leading Dutch botanists.