-
Hans and Zacharias Jansen
- produced the first compound microscope by combining two convex lenses within a tube.
-
Robert Hooke
- an English scientist who discovered the cellular composition of cork and introduced the word cell to science.
-
Francesco Redi
- an Italian physician who performed an experiment to see if rotting meat changed into flies.
-
Anton van Leeuwenhoek
- a Dutch biologist who improved magnification of microscopes by polishing lenses.
- was first to see and describe bacteria.
-
Lazzaro Spallanzani
- an Italian biologist and abbot who tried several variations on the experiments done by John Needham.
- he discovered that soup that was kept sealed did not contain micro organisms that appeared in soup open to the air.
-
Robert Brown
- an English botanist who discovered the nucleus in plant cells.
-
Matthias Schleiden
- a German botanist proposes that all plant tissues are composed of cells.
-
Theodor Schwann
- a German botanist who reached the conclusion that not only plants, but animal tissue as well is composed of cells.
-
Rudolph Virchow
- a German physiologist/physician/pathologist who added the 3rd part of cell theory.
- proposed that diseased cells come form healthy cells.
- stated that all living things come from other living things.
-
Louis Pasteur
- demonstrated that micro-organisms only come from other micro-organisms.
- repeated the soup experiment, determining that soup spoiled when exposed to air only if the air was not filtered or if the container had an opening allowing micro-organisms to enter.