Forensic Science
The discovery of cells and their structure is linked to the development of microscopes, which allowed scientists to observe microscopic cells. In the mid 1600s, in the Netherlands, the scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek developed the first known microscope using a single magnifying lens. He is described as the first microbiologist because he was the first to observe microscopic cells that we now know to be bacteria and blood cells. Van Leeuwenhoek shared the designs of his microscope, as well as his observations, with the scientific community. 1655 Robert Hooke Around 1655 the English scientist Robert Hooke used van Leeuwenhoeks ideas and made the first compound microscope, which used more than one lens to magnify an object. He examined thin slices of cork, a dead plant material. Using the microscope he was able to see that the cork was made up of thousands of empty chambers. Hooke called these chambers cells after the rows of small rooms in a monastery.We still use the name cells today, but we now know that living cells are far from empty chambers. They actually contain many different working parts, each with a specific structure and function. Other scientists continued to make observations that made it clear to the scientific community that cells were the basic units of life. 1833 Robert Brown As microscopes became more widely used, discoveries and observations of cells grew. The English botanist Robert Brown was the first scientist to publish his findings of a cells nucleus, which he found in plant cells.Many scientists of the time recognized cells as building blocks of living tissue. But it was not until 1838 that a cell theory was published and widely accepted by the scientific community. 1838 M. J. Schleiden Matthias Jakob Schleiden, a German botanist,published a conclusion stating that all plant tissues are composed of cells and that an embryonic plant arose from a single cell. He declared that the cell is thebasic building blockof all plant matter. This