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Anton Van Leeunwenhoek
Was a Dutch tradesman and scientist, best known for his work on the development and improvement of the microscope and also for his subsequent contribution towards microbiology. -
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Robert Hooke
was an architect, natural philosopher and brilliant scientist, best known for his law of elasticity (Hooke's law), his book Micrographia, published in 1665 and for first applying the word "cell" to describe the basic unit of life. -
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Matthias Schledien
Schlieden investigated plants microscopically and conceived that plants were made up of recongnizable units, or cells. Plant growth, he stated in 1837, came about through the production of new cells, which, he speculated, where prophagates from the nuclei of old cells. Although later discoveries proved him wrong about the role of the nucleus in mitosis, or cell division, his conception of the cell as the common structural unit of plants had the profound effect of shifting scientific attention. -
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Theodore Schwann
Schwann described cellular strucures in animal cartilage (rigid extracellular matrix). He pulled existing observations together into theory that stated: 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 and that plants and animals consist of combinations of these organisms which are arranged in accordance with definite rules. In other words, the cell is the basic unit of life. -
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Rudolph Virchow
was an emient German pathologist and politician, who is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential physicians in history. One of the founding fathers of “social medicine”, Virchow developed the concept of pathological processes, and by drawing influence from the cell theory, analyzed the effects of disease in various organs and tissues of the human body.