CELL THEORY

Cell theory is a scientific theory first formulated in the mid-nineteenth century, that living organisms
is made of cells, that they are the basic structural/organizational unit of all organisms, and that all
cells come from pre-existing cells. Cells are the basic unit of structure in all organisms and the basic
unit of reproduction.

The Cell Theory states:

 All living organisms are composed of cells. They may be unicellular or multicellular.
 The cell is the basic unit of life.
 Cells arise from pre-existing cells. (They are not derive from spontaneous generation.)

The modern version of the Cell Theory includes the ideas that:

 Energy flow occurs within cells.

 Heredity information (DNA) is pass on from cell to cell.
 All cells have the same basic chemical composition.

In addition to the cell theory, the gene thery, evolution, homeostasis, and the laws of

thermodynamics form the basic principles that are the foundation for the study of life.

Opposing concepts in cell theory: history and background

Robert Hooke first discovered the cell in 1665 using a microscope. The first cell theory
credited to the work of Theodor Schwann and Matthias Jakob Schleiden in the 1830s. In this
theory, the internal contents of cells were called protoplasm and described as a jelly-like
substance, sometimes called living jelly. At about the same time, colloidal chemistry began
its development, and the concepts of bound water emerged. A colloid being something
between a solution and a suspension, where Brownian motion is sufficient to
prevent sedimentation. The idea of a semipermeable membrane, a barrier that is permeable
to solvent but impermeable to solute molecules was develop at about the same time. The
term osmosis originated in 1827 and its importance to physiological phenomena realized, but
it wasn’t until 1877, when the botanist Pfeiffer proposed the membrane theory of cell
physiology. In this view, the cell was seen to be enclosed by a thin surface, the plasma
membrane, and cell water and solutes such as a potassium ion existed in a physical state
like that of a dilute solution. In 1889, Hamburger used hemolysis of erythrocytes to
determine the permeability of various solutes. By measuring the time required for the cells to
swell past their elastic limit, the rate at which solutes entered the cells could be estimate by
the accompanying change in cell volume. He also found that there was none apparent
nonsolvent volume of about 50% in red blood cells and later showed that this includes water
of hydration in addition to the protein and other nonsolvent components of the cells.