Editing Anaerobic organism (section)

==First recorded observation==
In his 14 June 1680 letter to The [[Royal Society]], [[Antonie van Leeuwenhoek]] described an experiment he carried out by filling two identical glass tubes about halfway with crushed pepper powder, to which some clean rain water was added. Van Leeuwenhoek sealed one of the glass tubes using a flame and left the other glass tube open. Several days later, he discovered in the open glass tube 'a great many very little animalcules, of divers sort having its own particular motion.' Not expecting to see any life in the sealed glass tube, Van Leeuwenhoek saw to his surprise 'a kind of living animalcules that were round and bigger than the biggest sort that I have said were in the other water.' The conditions in the sealed tube had become quite anaerobic due to consumption of oxygen by aerobic microorganisms.<ref name="Gest-2004">Gest, Howard. (2004) ''The discovery of microorganisms by Robert Hooke and Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, Fellows of the Royal Society'', in: 'The Royal Society May 2004 Volume: 58 Issue: 2: pp. 12.</ref>

In 1913, [[Martinus Beijerinck]] repeated Van Leeuwenhoek's experiment and identified ''[[Clostridium butyricum]]'' as a prominent anaerobic bacterium in the sealed pepper infusion tube liquid. Beijerinck commented:

{{blockquote|We thus come to the remarkable conclusion that, beyond doubt, Van Leeuwenhoek in his experiment with the fully closed tube had cultivated and seen genuine anaerobic bacteria, which would happen again only after 200 years, namely about 1862 by Pasteur. That Leeuwenhoek, one hundred years before the discovery of oxygen and the composition of air, was not aware of the meaning of his observations is understandable. But the fact that in the closed tube he observed an increased gas pressure caused by fermentative bacteria and in addition saw the bacteria, prove in any case that he not only was a good observer, but also was able to design an experiment from which a
conclusion could be drawn.<ref name="Gest-2004"/>}}