Working in the lab of the influential Müller, Schleiden and
Schwann soon found their ideas the talk of the scientific world. Mül-
ler himself contributed to their success by writing about cell theory
in his
Handbook of Human Physiology.
“From the 1840s to the 1880s
it was probably the most important physiology textbook in Europe,”
says Laura Otis, author of a book about the professor and his students.
“Everyone read Müller.”
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Müller also employed cell theory in his own
work on the cell structure of cancerous tumors, creating in the process
a new branch of medical study. Cell research was spawning a period of
upheaval in science, with new discoveries arriving at a rapid pace.
The Generation of Cells
Although Schleiden and Schwann playedmajor roles in developing two
major tenets of cell theory—that all living tissues are composed of cells
and the cell is the basic unit of structure and function in life—their ideas
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In the 1830s Matthias Schleiden and Theodor Schwann examined the notochord
(embryonic spine) of vertebrates under a microscope and discovered that the tissue
was made up of cells. Schwann, a physiologist, went on to propose that all living
things were made up of cells.
