Aristotle (Ancient Greek: , Aristotls) (384 BC 322 BC)[1] was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and

d teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology. Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato's teacher), Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy. Aristotle's writings were the first to create a comprehensive system of Western philosophy, encompassing morality, aesthetics, logic, science, politics, and metaphysics.

Hippocrates of Cos or Hippokrates of Kos (Ancient Greek: ; Hippokrts; c. 460 BC c. 370 BC) was an ancient Greek physician of the Age of Pericles (Classical Greece), and is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine. He is referred to as the father of Western medicine[2][3][4] in recognition of his lasting contributions to the field as the founder of the Hippocratic School of Medicine. This intellectual school revolutionized medicine in ancient Greece, establishing it as a discipline distinct from other fields that it had traditionally been associated with (notably theurgy and philosophy), thus establishing medicine as a profession.[5][6]

Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus (AD 129c.200/c.216), better known as Galen of Pergamon (modern-day Bergama, Turkey), was a prominent Roman (of Greek ethnicity) physician, surgeon and philosopher.[1][2][3] Arguably the most accomplished of all medical researchers of antiquity, Galen contributed greatly to the understanding of numerous scientific disciplines, including anatomy,[4] physiology, pathology,[5] pharmacology,[6] and neurology, as well as philosophy[7] and logic.

Matthias Jakob Schleiden (5 April 1804 23 June 1881) was a German botanist and co-founder of the cell theory, along with Theodor Schwann and Rudolf Virchow. Born in Hamburg, Schleiden was educated at Heidelberg, then practiced law in Hamburg, but soon developed his love for the botany into a full-time pursuit. Schleiden preferred to study plant structure under the microscope. He in 1838, studied plant tissues and stated that all plants are aggregates of individual cells which are fully independent. Thus he made the first statement of cell theory. While a 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. This made him the first to realize that the parts of the plants are made of cells. Thus, Schleiden and Schwann 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,[1] and sensed its connection with cell division.

Theodor Schwann (7 December 1810 11 January 1882) was a German physiologist. His many contributions to biology include the development of cell theory, the discovery of Schwann cells in the peripheral nervous system, the discovery and study of pepsin, the discovery of the organic nature of yeast, and the invention of the term metabolism.

Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck (1 August 1744 18 December 1829), often known simply as Lamarck, was a French naturalist. He was a soldier, biologist, academic, and an early proponent of the idea that evolution occurred and proceeded in accordance with natural laws. Lamarck fought in the Pomeranian War with Prussia, and was awarded a commission for bravery on the battlefield.[1] At his post in Monaco, Lamarck became interested in natural history and resolved to study medicine.[2] He retired from the army after being injured in 1766, and returned to his medical studies.[2]

Charles Robert Darwin, FRS (12 February 1809 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist.[I] He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors,[1] and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding.[2] Darwin published his theory of evolution with compelling evidence in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, overcoming scientific rejection of earlier concepts of transmutation of species.[3][4] By the 1870s the scientific community and much of the general public had accepted evolution as a fact. However, many favoured competing explanations and it was not until the emergence of the modern evolutionary synthesis from the 1930s to the 1950s that a broad consensus developed in which natural selection was the basic mechanism of evolution.[5][6] In modified form, Darwin's scientific discovery is the unifying theory of the life sciences, explaining the diversity of life.[7][8]

Robert Hooke FRS (28 July [O.S. 18 July] 1635 3 March 1703) was an English natural philosopher, architect and polymath. His adult life comprised three distinct periods: as a scientific inquirer lacking money; achieving great wealth and standing through his reputation for hard work and scrupulous honesty following the great fire of 1666, but eventually becoming ill and party to jealous intellectual disputes. These issues may have contributed to his relative historical obscurity. He was at one time simultaneously the curator of experiments of the Royal Society and a member of its council, Gresham Professor of Geometry and a Surveyor to the City of London after the Great Fire of London, in which capacity he appears to have performed more than half of all the surveys after the fire. He was also an important architect of his time, though few of his buildings now survive and some of those are generally misattributed, and was instrumental in devising a set of planning controls for London whose influence remains today. Allan Chapman has characterised him as "England's Leonardo".[1]