The scientist who discovered sperm was so grossed out he hoped his findings would be repressed

Human civilization had a good understanding of how sex and reproduction worked long before the microscope was invented. But it wasn't until the 17th century that anyone knew what sperm actually were, or were aware of their strange appearance. And when sperm finally were formally discovered, by Antonie Philips van Leeuwenhoek, the father of microbiology, he was so uncomfortable he wished he could unsee what he'd just observed.
When Royal Society Secretary Henry Oldenburg asked Leeuwenhoek to look at semen, the Dutch draper initially did not reply "because he felt it was 'unseemly.'"
Despite living in the Dutch Republic during the 17th century, Leeuwenhoek's story could be mistaken for embodying the American Dream. He was never formally trained as a scientist, but he had a strong work ethic and a powerful mind. Armed with those tools, Leeuwenhoek made discoveries that transformed how human beings view the world. By the end of his life, he was a prosperous pillar of his community and regarded throughout the West as an intellectual giant. He owed all of this to one thing: His cutting edge microscopes and their ability to study "animalcules," as bacteria were then called. His microscopes indisputably proved to humanity that it shared this planet with countless single-celled organisms.
Yet when Leeuwenhoek discovered sperm, he anticipated that the world would be disgusted.
The scientist who discovered sperm was so grossed out he hoped his findings would be repressed