Wolpert L
Department of Anatomy & Developmental Biology, University College London, U.K.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 1995 Sep 29;349(1329):227-33. doi: 10.1098/rstb.1995.0106.
The problem of the nature of life has a long history going back to the Greeks. There was little real progress until the 19th century and Aristotle may have been at home with many 18th century ideas about vital forces and basic units. Although Hooke described cells in 1665 it took a further 200 years for the significance and nature of cells to be appreciated. In the mid 18th century some considered the basic building blocks of living matter to be fibrous. Globular theories, the precursor to the cell theory, were quite popular at the beginning of the 19th century. Many workers, as microscopes improved, had described various cell types and structures including the nucleus but the idea that cells were the universal units is associated with in 1838 and that of Schwann in 1839. However, Schwann mistakenly thought that cells could form de novo. Cell division was established by Remak and others in the 1850s. Mitosis was first understood by Flemming in 1882. The existence of the animal cell membrane was only established by the beautiful experiments of Overton in 1895. The history of the cell theory can be used to show that progress can be based on incorrect but productive ideas. It is one of the most important ideas in all of biology.
生命本质的问题有着悠久的历史，可以追溯到古希腊时期。直到19世纪才有了实质性的进展，亚里士多德可能会认同许多18世纪关于生命力和基本单位的观点。尽管胡克在1665年描述了细胞，但又过了200年，细胞的重要性和本质才得到认识。在18世纪中叶，一些人认为生命物质的基本组成部分是纤维状的。球状理论，即细胞学说的前身，在19世纪初相当流行。随着显微镜的改进，许多研究者描述了包括细胞核在内的各种细胞类型和结构，但细胞是普遍单位这一观点与施莱登在1838年、施旺在1839年的工作有关。然而，施旺错误地认为细胞可以重新产生。细胞分裂是由雷马克等人在19世纪50年代确立的。有丝分裂最早是由弗莱明在1882年理解的。动物细胞膜的存在直到1895年奥弗顿的精彩实验才得以确立。细胞学说的历史可以用来表明，进展可以基于错误但富有成效的观点。它是整个生物学中最重要的观点之一。
