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First Microscope
Spontaneous generation found further support from the observations of the Dutch merchant Anton van Leewenhoek, the inventor of the first, primitive microscopes. -
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Spontaneous Generations
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Organelle First Seen
Cells were first seen in 1665 by Robert Hooke (who named them after monks' cells in a monastery), and were studied in more detail by Leeuwehoek using a primitive microscope. -
The Francesco Redi Experiment
Francesco Redi was able to disprove the theory that maggots could be spontaneously generated from meat using a controlled experiment. Spontaneous generation, the theory that life forms can be generated from inanimate objects, had been around since at least the time of Aristotle. -
Leewenhoek's statement
Leewenhoek corresponded to the Royal Society in London, describing the tiny, rapidly moving, "animacules" he found in rain water, in liquid in which he had soaked peppercorn, and in the scrapings from his teeth -
Anton van Leeuwenhoek
Leeuwenhoek, Anton van (1632–1723), a Dutch biologist. Reconstructed greatly improved microscopes and became the first person to see bacteria and protozoans. He gave the first accurate description of red blood corpuscles, and he later described the capillary action of the blood -
Lazzaro Spallanzani's Experiment
One of the first to disprove spontaneous generation. An Italian scientist who proved microorganisms could be killed by boiling. -
Schleiden proposal
Schleiden proposed that all plants are composed of cells; together with his friend Theodor Schwann he formulated the cell theory of life. -
Theodor Schwann Theorizes that All Living Things are Made of Cells
In 1839 Theodor Schwann (1810-1882) published a monograph that declared all animals and plants are made from one single fundamental unit.1 The thought marked a sea change in the study of anatomy and life itself. It was an insight founded on years of research by scientists looking through their microscopes to discover, bit by bit, that animals and plants are full of cells.