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Period: Jan 1, 1580 to
History of Biology
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Zacharias Janssen (1580 - 1638)
Janssen was a Dutch spectacle-maker from Middelburg, who invented the first compound microscope in 1595. He was also one of 3 people who were credited and associated with the invention of the first telescope in the Netherlands in 1608. Zacharias was tried in court for counterfeiting coins in the year 1616. -
Robert Hooke (1635 - 1703)
Hooke's work around his law of elasticity led to the inventions of the balance spring (1669), which was a key part in allowing the mechanical watch to keep time accurately, He was a member of the Royal Society from 1663. Robert wrote a book called 'Micrographia' which was published in 1665. The book demonstrates the power of microscopes and identifies the term 'cells'. -
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632 - 1723)
Antonie was Dutch tradesman and scientist, best known for improving the microscope in 1674. Who eventually developed an significant interest in lens making. The single lens microscope he built could identify 200x, which was a significant improvement as the previous ones could only magnify 20 - 30x. -
Carl Linnaeus (1707 - 1778)
Linnaeus was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, devoting most of his life creating the first functioning classification systems for taxonomic, splitting living things into three kingdoms (Animal, Vegetable, Mineral). He gave scientific names to every plant and animal either genus or species. His grouping based upon shared physical charastics. Linnaeus's binomial nomenclature system has been around more than 250 years from now. As you can see, his contribution was indeed important. -
Devolopment of the Cell Theory (Mid 17th Cent.)
Now you're probably thinking, how every one of the scientists we've talked about so far (Janssen, Hooke, Antonie, the Trio) has contributed to the idea.
As you read the description of each of the scientists I have written, you realize that without the observations and the invention of the microscope (Janssen), Schleiden, Schwann and Virchow simply wouldn't have made the discoveries that have certainly impacted in the world of science today, including the cell theory, the basic unit of life. -
Matthias Schleiden (1804 - 1881)
Matthias Jakob Schleiden was a german botanist and co - founder of the cell theory along with Schwann and Rudolf. Matthias concluded that all plants are made up of cells in 1838. He also observed the importance of the cell nucleus, and identified its union with cell division. -
Theodor Schwann (1810 - 1882)
Theodor Schwann was a German physiologist. In 1839 , A year after Schleiden published his cell theory on plants, the two scientists communicated and decided to extend it to animals, thereby bringing botany and zoology together under one unifying theory. -
Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882)
Mission 6 was about Charles Darwin, who was a English naturalist and geologist. Darwin always had a life long interest in history, so that led him to aboarding a five year South American Voyage on the HMS Beagle in 1831 as the ship's naturalist .On the voyage, Charles collected varities of kind of specimen, sending letters of report back to england. Darwin collected some finches when he Galopagos Islands, and it is often said that these birds were key to the devolpement of his evolution theory. -
The Naturalists - Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882) & Alfred Wallace (1823 - 1913)
When Wallace was suffering from malaria,that was when the theory of evolution came to him.Nights later,when he was able to,he organized his thinking into a presentable scientific paper and that was when all the pieces started to fall into place,therefore being the first to discover the theory.Darwin and him corresponded a lot and it turned out darwin had discovered the idea 20 years before alfred,leaving them in shock.Their work took long for scientists to accept,but their efforts were rewarded. -
Rudolph Virchow (1821 - 1902)
Although Rudolph Virchow worked in multiple careers, he was mostly known as a German medical doctor (A.K.A "Father of Pathology,") crediting many different important discoveries of his time. Rudolph was most widely known scientific contribution to the cell theory, who built on the work of Theodor Schwann. The doctor stated that new cells are formed only from existing cells in 1855, not only that but was the first one to recognize leukemia cells. -
Alfred Russel Wallace (1823 - 1913)
Alfred Wallace was the most prolific collector of natural history specimens of all time. He collected over thousands of specimen and studied every aspect of it. Wallace was a very famous scientist of his time, he wrote books quite often , generally about society and politics. After Alfred came to his death 1913, he became forgotten, and people now when they hear about the theory of Evolution by natural selection they unfortunately only remember Darwin.
