The Cell

Abstract

ALL STUDENTS OF BIOLOGY ARE FAMILIAR WITH THE OBSERVATIONS OF THE English microscopist Robert Hooke. In an account of his investigations published in 1665, Hooke described the microscopic appearance of cork and used the word cell to identify the small box-like compartments that he saw. Some 10 years later Antoni van Leeuwenhoek published numerous drawings of bacteria, spermatozoa, protozoa and red blood cells. It was not until the early nineteenth century, however—over 100 years after the observations of Hooke and van Leeuwenhoek—that the anatomist Theodor Schwann announced that ‘the elemental parts of tissues are cells, similar in general but diverse in form and function’. Other scientists quickly accepted the new cellular theory, and the scientific world witnessed the beginnings of an explosion in cell science.