History of Biology in 19 and 20 Century

History of biology in 19 and 20 century

Biology is a science which studies living organisms. The history of biology is very long and there are many scientists who study that. First man who used the word “biology” was Jean Babtiste Lamarck (1744 - 1849). The history of biology is the study of the living world from ancient to modern times. The first biologists were in an ancient Greece, for example Plato or Aristotle, they started to study nature and living organisms around them. During the Renaissance and early modern period, biological thought was revolutionized by a renewed interest in discovery of many new organisms. The most important scientists in this movement were Vesalius and Harvey, who used experimentation and careful observation in physiology, and naturalists such as Linnaeus and Buffon who began to classify the differences of life, as well as the development and behavior of organisms. The discovery of microscopes explore previously unknown world of microorganisms, laying the groundwork for cell theory.

The most important and famous scientists in 19 and 20 century:

Jean Baptiste Lamarck- In either 1802 or 1809, published his theory of evolution. A number of another attempts were made to support or disprove this theory without the benefit of our modern knowledge of genetics. One experiment involved amputation of mouse tails for successive generations, showing that even after twenty generations, there was no effect: baby mice were still born with tails.

Charles Darwin- He was one of the most important scientists in the history. He published his own theory of evolution. In this theory he publish his opinion what was: the every organism, animal or human, evolve from a few common ancestors through the process of natural selection and every organism has to change or adapt to the nature around them. He first thought about this theory in 1838. Historians think that he didn’t publish his theory because he was afraid that people wouldn’t accept his theory because it was in the difference with the religion. So he didn’t publish it until 1859, when he heard that another scientist, Alfred Wallace had the same ideas. Wallace was close to publishing his ideas. So Darwin published his theory in the book. The name of the book was: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. This is also just called The Origin of Species.

Theodor Schwan- He was zoologist. Among his many contributions to biology there was the development of cell theory, the discovery of Schwann cells in the peripheral nervous system, the discovery and study of pepsin, the discovery of the organic nature of yeast and the invention of the term metabolism.

Mattias Schleiden- He was a German botanist and co-founder of the cell theory. Schleiden preferred to study plant structure under the microscope. While a professor of botany at the University of Jena, he wrote Contributions to Phytogenesis (1838), in which he stated that the different parts of the plant organism are composed of cells.

Alfred Russel Wallace- He was another naturalist. He was independently working on the theory what was same like Darwin’s. The result of his work was: Darwin was the first person to come up with these ideas, while until recently, Wallace’s work was almost totally ignored. Darwin’s friends want from him to publish his theory, and the Origin of Species was the result. Darwin eventually published several other books describing his ideas and theories. And the Wallace’s work has been forgotten and ignored.

Louis Pasteur- He was a French chemist and biologist best known for his discoveries in microbiology. His experiments confirmed the germ theory of disease and he discover that microbes, viruses and bacteria makes the diseases, also reducing mortality from puerperal fever, and he created the first vaccine against rabies. He is best known to the general public for showing how to stop milk and wine from going sour - this process came to be called pasteurization. He is regarded as one of the three main founders of microbiology, together with Ferdinand Cohn and Robert Koch.

Johan Gregor Mendel- He was an Austrian monk, published a paper on genetics that earned him the nickname “the Father of Modern Genetics.” One of Mendel’s jobs at the monastery was to care for the garden. He noticed the differences between the plants of the same kind. From this he developed a theory of genetics that refuted the pangene idea and enabled people to predict the outcome of a genetic cross if the genes of the parents were known. When Mendel first published his paper, the idea of the pangenes it was ignored his work or dismissed it as false. It wasn’t until 1900 that a couple of botanists working on other research rediscovered his work.

In 1870 the process of mitosis, regular cell division by which one cell divides to make two cells, was observed, and researchers noticed that chromosomes, whose function was not understood, were moving around in the cell during mitosis so that each daughter cell got an exact set of them.

James Watson, an American, and Francis Crick, an Englishman, used the x-ray data collected by another scientists to propose a hypothetical structure for DNA molecule, which also showed how DNA could be the genetic code material and suggested a means what it could replicate itself. Another chemical analyses of DNA have confirm their prediction. For their work they received the Nobel Prize award in 1962.

Timeline

1655 - Robert Hooke (1635-1703) of Britain designed his own microscope and discovered matter made up of what he called cells.

1759 - C.F. Wolff (1733-1794) of Germany proposed a general cell theory.

1838 - Matthias J. Schleiden (1804-1881) of Germany published a cell theory as applied to plants.

1839 - Theodor Schwann (1810-1882) of Germany published cell theory as applied to animals.

1857 - Gregor Johann Mendel (1822-1884), an Austrian monk, began experiments with pea plants.

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