Cell Theory

  • 330 BCE

    Aristotle

    Aristotle
    Aristotle supported spontaneous generation. He proposed that life arose from nonliving material if it contained vital heat.
  • Zacharias Jansen

    Zacharias Jansen
    Zacharias Jansen, with some help of his father, created the first compound microscope. They realized if you put a small object in a tube with several lenses it appears larger.
  • Jan Baptist van Helmont

    Jan Baptist van Helmont
    In the 17th century, Jan Baptist van Helmont conducted one of the first experiments to prove spotaneous generation, but declared his was unique. He placed a dirty shirt with some wheat and said mice were born 21 days later.
  • Robert Hooke

    Robert Hooke
    Robert Hooke was looking at cork under a microscope and named cells because he thought they looked like jail cells,
  • Francesco Redi

    Francesco Redi
    Fransesco Redi, an Italian scientist, conducted an experiment to test spontaneous generation. He cocluded that maggots came from fly eggs and disproved spontaneous generation.
  • Anton van Leeuwenhoek

    Anton van Leeuwenhoek
    Van Leeuwenhoek, a Dutch tradesman, learned to grind lenses to create a simple microscope. He created the first single lense microscope.
  • Lorenz Oken

    Lorenz Oken
    Lorens Oken, German Nature-Philosopher and microscopist, reported that all living organisms oringinate from and conist of cells.
  • Theodor Schwann

    Theodor Schwann
    Theodor Schwann discovered that all animals are made of cells and that cells are the building blocks of all animals. He also proposed unfied cell theory.
  • Robert Brown

    Robert Brown
    Robert Brown discovered the role of and named the nucleus. He helped confirm the second half of cell theory.
  • Matthias Schleiden

    Matthias Schleiden
    Matthias Schleiden discovered that plants are made of cells. Cells are the building blocks of plants.
  • Albrecht von Roelliker

    Albrecht von Roelliker discovered that sperm and eggs are also cells.
  • Rudolf Virchow

    Rudolf Virchow came to the conclusion that all living things are made of cells. Each cell has all of the characteristics of a living thing.
  • Louis Pasteur

    Louis Pasteur brought the idea of spontaneous generation to an end with the exoerinents he conducted.
  • John Tyndall

    John Tyndall helped disprove the idea of spontaneous generation by showing food doesn´t decay in germ free air.