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Zacharias Janssen
Zacharias Janssen, with time he help of his father, created the first compound microscopes that later scientists used. He was credited to create the first microscope and/or telescope. This new invention that Zacharias Janssen made allowed other scientists to agree with the rejection of spontaneous generation. -
Robert Hooke
Robert Hooke was the first person to ever use the word “cell” while he looked in the chambers of cork because it reminded him of cellulas that monks lived in. He studied all types of microscopic things,from fly’s eyes to microscopic fossils! He was the first person to believe in the theory of evolution. Robert Hooke’s discovery helped reject the idea of spontaneous generation because he actually discovered cells and rejected the fact that living things came from non-living things...or nothing! -
Anton van Leeuwenhoek
Anton van Leeuwenhoek created a microscopes with a single high quality lens of very short focal length. The microscopes he made were simple microscopes. He was the first person to discover microscopic animals like Protozoa, Spermatozoa, and Parthogenesis. He was also the first person to accurately describe red blood cells. He contributed to the rejection of spontaneous generation by proving that organisms had to come from living things that kept evolving, not just appearing out of thin air. -
Theodor Schwann
He extended the cell theory from plants to animals. He observed the formation of yeast and concluded that fermentation of sugar and starch was the result of life processes. He was the first to contribute to the germ theory. He formulated the basic principles of embryology by observing that the egg is a single cell that grows into a complete organism. This contributed to the rejection of spontaneous generation because this was proof that living things came from other living things. -
Matthias Schleiden
He was the first German biologist to accept Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. He recognized the importance of a cell’s nucleus (discovered in 1831 by Scotish botanist Robert Brown) and sensed its connection to cell division. He studied plant structures through a microscope. This contributed to the rejection of spontaneous generation because this proves that a living things needs cells in order to survive, so they couldn’t have just appeared out of nowhere or from non-living things. -
Rudolf Virchow
He pioneered the concept of pathological processes by his application of the cell theory to explain the effects of disease in the organs and tissues of the body. He discovered that phlebitis causes most diseases. His contribution to the rejection of spontaneous generation was that he figured out that cells had to come from other cells, so that means living things come from other living things.