-
The First Microscope
Janssen has been associated with invention of the single-lens (simple) optical microscope and the compound (2 or more lens) 9x magnification optical microscope, sometimes claimed to have been devised with the help of his father (or sometimes said to have been built entirely by his father) with a date of invention commonly given as 1590 (or sometimes 1595), while trying to find a way to make magnification even greater to help people with seriously poor eyesight. -
First Cell 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. -
The center of a 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. -
The Cell Theroy
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 -
Where does life come from
Albrecht von Roelliker discoveres that sperm and eggs are also cells. -
Basic unit of life
Carl Heinrich Braun reworks the cell theory, calling cells the basic unit of life. -
3rd part to 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.
