Schleiden, Mathias Jacob

born April 5, 1804, Hamburg, Ger.

died June 23, 1881, Frankfurt am Main

German botanist.

Trained as a lawyer, he soon left the profession to study natural science. He and Theodor Schwann developed the cell theory, which states that organisms are composed of cells or substances made by cells; they were thus the first to formulate what was then an informal belief as a principle of biology equal in importance to the atomic theory of chemistry. He also recognized the importance of the cell nucleus and sensed its connection with cell division. He was one of the first German biologists to accept Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

Schleiden

By courtesy Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz BPK, West Berlin

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▪ German botanist

born April 5, 1804, Hamburg

died June 23, 1881, Frankfurt am Main

 German botanist, cofounder (with Theodor Schwann) of the cell theory.

      Schleiden was educated at Heidelberg (1824–27) and practiced law in Hamburg but soon developed his hobby of botany into a full-time pursuit. Repelled by contemporary botanists' emphasis on classification, Schleiden preferred to study plant structure under the microscope. While 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 or derivatives of cells. Thus, Schleiden became the first to formulate what was then an informal belief as a principle of biology equal in importance to the atomic theory of chemistry. He also recognized the importance of the cell nucleus, discovered in 1831 by the Scottish botanist Robert Brown, and sensed its connection with cell division. Schleiden was one of the first German biologists to accept Darwin's theory of evolution. He became professor of botany at Dorpat, Russia, in 1863.

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