Dec. 7, 1810 - Jan. 11, 1882
From Today In Science History
Schwann was a German physiologist who founded modern histology by defining the cell in Mikroskopische Untersuchungen (1839) as the basic unit of animal structure that makes elementary parts (such as teeth, bone, muscle, cartilage, nerve tissue) by cell differentiation. This laid the foundations for the cell theory.
Schwann also worked on fermentation and discovered the enzyme pepsin. Schwann cells are named after him. He also formulated basic principles of embryology (that the egg is a single cell that develops into a complete organism); and coined the term metabolism. image
