1.

What contributions did van Leeuwenhoek, Hooke, Schleiden, Schwann, and Virchow led to
the development of the cell theory?
It all started in the early 1600s in the Netherlands, where a spectacle maker named Zacharias
Janssen is said to have come up with the first compound microscope. Despite this, the
microscope soon became a loved item by scientists that every one of them at the time wanted
to use it. One person by the name of Anton van Leeuwenhoek in Holland, who heard about the
scientists having microscope, and instead of buying one, he decided to make his microscope
lenses, and he was so good at it that his microscope was more powerful than other
microscopes of his day. Once Leeuwenhoek had his microscope ready, he discovered bacteria
by looking at his teeth.
After Leeuwenhoek discovered bacteria, his friend in England, Robert Hooke looked at a thin
slice of cork under his microscope, he was surprised to see that the little chambers reminded
him of cells, the rooms monks slept inside their monasteries. That’s why Hooke invented the
word “cell” to refer to these tiny units of life.
In the 1800s, where two German scientists, named Matthias Jakob Schleiden and Theodor
Schwann, propose that cells are the fundamental part of all living things. Around 1850, a
German doctor, named Rudolf Virchow was examining cells under a microscope when he
happened to see them dividing and forming new cells. He realized that living cells produce new
cells through division. Based on this realization, Virchow proposed that living cells arise only
from other living cells.

The ideas of all three scientists: Schwann, Schleiden, and Virchow, led to cell theory, which is
one of the fundamental theories unifying all of biology. Cell theory states that: All organisms
are made of one or more cells. All the life functions of organisms occur within cells. And, all
cells come from already existing cells.

2. What role did the invention of the microscope play in the development of the cell theory?
Microscopes play an important role in discovering cells. As we all know cells are extremely small
and cannot be seen by the naked eye, so microscopes opened up a new dimension in biology,
by utilizing microscopes, scientists were capable of discovering the study of the structure of
cells and the development of the cell theory.