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Cell first observed
Robert Hooke, an English scientist, discovered a honeycomb-like structure in a cork slice using a primitive compound microscope. He only saw cell walls as this was dead tissue. He coined the term "cell" for these individual compartments he saw. -
First living cells seen
Anton van Leeuwenhoek, a Dutch biologist, looks at pond water with a microscope he made lenses for. -
Miniature animals
Anton van Leeuwenhoek made several more discoveries on a microscopic level, eventually publishing a letter to the Royal Society in which he included detailed drawings of what he saw. Among these was the first protozoa and bacteria discovered. -
The center of the cell seen
Robert Brown, an English botanist, discovered the nucleus in plant cells. -
Basic building blocks
Matthias Jakob Schleiden, a German botanist, proposes that all plant tissues are composed of cells, and that cells are the basic building blocks of all plants. This statement was the first generalized statement about cells. -
CELL THEORY
Theodor Schwann, a German botanist reached the conclusion that not only plants, but animal tissue as well is composed of cells. This ended debates that plants and animals were fundamentally different in structure. He also pulled together and organized previous statement on cells into one theory, which states: 1 - Cells are organisms and all organisms consist of one or more cells. 2 - The cell is the basic unit of structure for all organisms. -
Something else
Albrecht von Roelliker discoveres that sperm and eggs are also cells. -
Basic unit of life
Carl Heinrich Braun reworks in the cell theory, calling cells the basic unit of life. -
3rd part of the cell theory added
Rudolf Virchow, a German physiologist/physician/pathologist added the 3rd part to the cell theory. The original is Greek, and states Omnis cellula e cellula. This translates as all cells develop only from existing cells. Virchow was also the first to propose that diseased cells come from healthy cells. -
Modern interpretation of the Cell Theory
- The cell represents the elementary unit of construction and function in living organisms.
- All cells come from the division of pre-existing cells.
- Energy flow – metabolism and biochemistry – happens within cells.
- Cells contain genetic information in the form of DNA passed on from cell to cell during division.
- In the organisms of similar species, all cells are fundamentally the same.
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Modern interpretation of the Cell Theory II
- All living organisms consist of one or more cells.
- Some cells – unicellular organisms – consist of only one cell.
- Other living entities are multicellular, containing multiple cells.
- The living organism's activities depend upon the combined actions of individual, independent cells.
