Matthias Jakob Schleiden (
1804-
1881) was a
German botanist and co-founder of the
cell theory. Schleiden was educated at
Heidelberg and practiced law in
Hamburg but soon developed his hobby of
botany into a full-time pursuit. Schleiden preferred to study plant structure under the microscope. While professor of botany at the University of
Jena, he wrote
Contributions to Phytogenesis, in which he stated that the different parts of the plant organism are composed 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 recognised 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 Germans biologists to accept
Charles Darwin's theory of
evolution. He became professor of botany at Dorpat,
Russia, (today
Tartu,
Estonia) in
1863.
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