BIOL 321 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Rudolf Virchow, Jan Swammerdam, Infusoria
Document Summary
A few lensmakers and natural philosophers had been creating crude microscopes since the late. 16th century, and robert hooke published the seminal micrographiabased on observations with his own compound microscope in 1665. Leeuwenhoek"s dramatic improvements in lensmaking beginning in the 1670s ultimately producing up to 200-fold magnification with a single lens that scholars discovered spermatozoa, bacteria, infusoria and the sheer strangeness and diversity of microscopic life. Similar investigations by jan swammerdam led to new interest in entomology and built the basic techniques of microscopic dissection and staining. Debate over the flood described in the bible catalyzed the development of paleontology; in. 1669 nicholas steno published an essay on how the remains of living organisms could be trapped in layers of sediment and mineralized to produce fossils. Advances in microscopy also had a profound impact on biological thinking. In the early 19th century, a number of biologists pointed to the central importance of the cell.
