Schleiden, Matthias

Schleiden. Matthias Jakob SeecEu. titeory Schwann, Titeodor. 

The cell theory of life was finally put forward in the early nineteenth century by Matthias Schleiden and Theodor Schwann. Schleiden worked primarily with plant tissue he argued for the central importance of a dark spot—the nucleus—within all cells. Schwann concentrated on animal tissue, in which it was harder to see cells. Nonetheless he discerned that animals were similar to plants in their cellular structure. Schwann concluded that cells or the secretions of cells compose the entire bodies of animals and plants, and that in some way the cells are individual units with a life of their own. He wrote that the question as to the fundamental power of organized bodies resolves itself into that of individual cells. As Schleiden added, Thus the primary question is, what is the origin of this peculiar little organism, the cell ... 

German botanist Matthias Schleiden (1804-81) proposes that plants are composed of cells. 

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