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2000 BCE
Ancient Egypt
Science of medicine and anatomy has originated in Ancient Egypt. -
300 BCE
Aristotle
He classifies animals and attributes characteristics to species by generalization of common traits. -
1000
Medieval Europe (5th - 15th century)
Questioned the nature of life through a scientific perspective
However, they didn't directly contribute to the cell theory but they paved away for modern science. -
1543
Andreas Vesalius
He publishes 'De Humani Corporis Fabrica', the first major book on human anatomy. -
Hans and Zacharias Jensen
They create the first compound microscope. -
Robert Hooke
The first time the word cell was used to refer to these tiny units of life by this British scientist -
Francesco Redi
He is one the first to disproves spontaneous generation via his experiments. -
Antoni van Leuwenhoek
He is born in 1668 and in his lifetime makes microscopes with up to 275x magnification -
John Needham
He publishes his findings in which he thinks he proves spontaneous generation but his findings are disproved later. -
Lazzaro Spallanzani
He disproves spontaneous generation and Needham's theory after conducting his own experiments. -
Jean Baptiste Lamarck
He claims that living things evolved in a continuously upward direction, from dead matter, through simple to more complex forms, toward human "perfection." In short, he believed that life started from spontaneous creation then gradually evolved. -
Lorenz Oken
He established basic ideas about elementary units of living organisms, which he called the "infusoria." He believed all flesh is made of these infusoria and called them "animalcules" or little animals.Oken proposed that these primal animals are the basic materials of all beings. Actually, Oken was approaching the idea of cells. -
Robert Brown
He discovers the cell nucleus -
Matthias Schleiden
He wrote “Contributions to Phytogenesis” (1838), in which he stated that the different parts of the plant organism are composed of cells. Schleiden defined the cell as the basic unit of plant structure. -
Theodore Schwann
He defined the cell as the basic unit of animal structure. Schleiden and Schwann articulated their observations as a unified theory—the cell theory—in 1839. -
Rudolf Virchow
He published a statement, based on his observations, 'Omnis cellula e cellula' which means that all cells arise from pre-existing cells. -
Louis Pasteur
Spontaneous generation was decisively dispelled by the 1859 experiment of this scientist. This was one of the last and most important experiments disproving the theory of spontaneous generation.
