Schleiden and Schwann - the first masons of the cellular theory

Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov has a comparison of science with construction, where knowledge, like bricks, creates the foundation of the system. So the cell theory with its founders - Schleiden and Schwann - is shared by many naturalists and scientists, their followers. One of the creators of the theory of the cellular structure of organisms R. Virchow once said: "Schwann stood on the shoulders of Schleiden." It is about the joint work of these two scientists that will be discussed in the article. On the cellular theory of Schleiden and Schwann.

Matias Jacob Schleiden

At the age of twenty-six, the young lawyer Matias Schleiden (1804-1881) decided to change his life than did not make the family happy. After giving up his law practice, he is transferred to the medical faculty of Heidelberg University. And already at the age of 35 she became a professor at the Department of Botany and Plant Physiology of the University of Jena. Schleiden saw his task in the solution of the mechanism of cell multiplication. In his works he correctly distinguished the primacy of the nucleus in the processes of reproduction, but did not see a similarity in the structure of cells of plants and animals.

In the article "On the question of plants" (1844), he proves a commonality in the structure of all plant cells, regardless of their location. A review to his article is written by the German physiologist Johann Müller, whose assistant was Teodor Schwann at the time.

Unfaithful priest

Theodore Schwann (1810-1882) studied at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Bonn, because he considered this direction the closest to his dream - to become a priest. However, interest in natural science was so strong that he graduated from Theodore University already at the Faculty of Medicine. Working as an assistant to the mentioned I. Muller, for five years he made discoveries so much that it would be enough for several scientists. This is the detection in the gastric juice of pepsin, and the sheath of nerve fibers. It was he who proved the direct participation of yeast fungi in the process of fermentation.

Companions

The scientific community of then Germany was not too big. Therefore, the meeting of the German scholars Schleiden and Schwann was predetermined. She took place in a cafe in one of the lunch breaks, in 1838. Future associates discussed their work. Mathias Schleiden with Theodore Schwann shared his discovery of the recognition of cells by nuclei. Repeating Schleiden's experiments, Schwann studies cells of animal origin. They communicate and become friends much. And a year later, a joint work "Microscopic research on the similarity in the structure and development of elementary units of animal and plant origin" appears, which made Schleiden and Schwann the founders of the doctrine of the cell, its structure and life activity.

Theory of the cellular structure

The main postulate, which reflected the work of Schwann and Schleiden, is that life is in the cage of all living organisms. The work of another German - pathologist Rudolf Virkhov - in 1858 finally bring clarity to the processes of cell life. It was he who supplemented the work of Schleiden and Schwann with a new postulate. "Every cell is from the cell," he said, pointing to the issues of the spontaneous generation of life. Rudolf Virchow is considered by many to be a co-author, and some sources use the saying "cellular theory of Schwann, Schleiden and Virchow."

The modern doctrine of the cell

One hundred and eighty years, since that moment, have added experimental and theoretical knowledge about living beings, but the basis remains the cellular theory of Schleiden and Schwann, the basic postulates of which are as follows:

• A self-renewing, self-reproducing and self-regulating cell is the foundation and the elementary unit of life.
• For all living organisms on the planet is characterized by their identical structure.
• The cell is a complex of polymers, which is reconstituted from inorganic components.
• Their reproduction is carried out by dividing the mother cell.
• Multicellularity of organisms implies the specialization of elements in tissue, organ and systemic.
• All specialized cells are formed by differentiation of totipotent ones.

Point of bifurcation

The theory of the German scientists Matthias Schleiden and Theodore Schwann became a turning point in the development of science. All branches of knowledge - histology, cytology, molecular biology, pathology anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, embryology, evolutionary teaching and many others - received a powerful impetus in development. The theory, which gives a new understanding in the interactions within the living system, opened new horizons for scientists who immediately used them. The Russian I. Chistyakov (1874) and the Polish-German biologist E. Strasburger (1875) disclose the mechanism of mitotic (asexual) cell division. The discovery of chromosomes in the nucleus and their role in the heredity and variability of organisms followed, deciphering the process of replication and translation of DNA and its role in protein biosynthesis, energy and plastic metabolism in ribosomes, gametogenesis and zygotic formation.

All these discoveries are included in the building of the science of the cell as a structural unit and the basis of all living things on the planet Earth. The branches of knowledge, the foundation of which was laid by the discoveries of friends and comrades-in-arms, such as the German scholars Schleiden and Schwann. Today, in the arsenal of biologists electronic microscopes with a resolution of tens and hundreds of times and the most sophisticated tools, methods of radiation marking and isotope irradiation, genetic modeling techniques and artificial embryology, but the cell still remains the most mysterious structure of life. More and more new discoveries about its structure and life activity bring the scientific world closer to the roof of this building, but no one predicts whether its construction will end and when. In the meantime, the building is not completed, and we all are waiting for new discoveries.