1Lecture 29Lecture 29Rise of Science in the 17th and 18th CenturyNew Systems of Philosophy and Experimental SciencesThe scientifi c revolution in this period was responsible for advances from supernaturalism to secularism, from theology to science, from hope of heaven and fears of hell to plans for the enlargement of knowledge and the improvement of human life (Will and Ariel Durant).Francis Bacon 1561–1626 (English)Rene Descartes 1596–1650 (French)William Hobbes 1588–1679 (English)Baruch Spinoza 1632–1677 (Dutch)Gottfried Leibnitz 1647–1716 (German)Isaac Newton 1642–1727 (English)New concepts by the above philosophers and scientists brought about a fusion of theoretical and ap-plied sciences and development was accelerated by the invention of new scientifi c instruments such as the barometer, air pump, and sextant. For the fi rst time, technology allowed mankind to move outside of the visual world: astronomy via the telescope by Galilei Galileo (1564–1642) [Jannssen, a Dutch spectacle maker, invented the telescope in 1590]; biology via the microscope (an “inverted” telescope). Science was to become an important force in Western culture. The Royal Society of London was founded in 1662. Scientifi c Societies soon followed by agricultural and horticultural societies.MicroscopyRobert Hooke (1634–1703) Hooke, an English experimental physicist, had wide interests in science. He was the fi rst to state clearly that the motion of heavenly bodies must be regarded as a mathematical problem and he approached, in a remarkable manner, the discovery of universal gravitation. Hooke had a strong personality and temper and made virulent attacks on Newton and other scientists claiming that their published work was due to him.Hooke is remembered in biology for the discovery and naming of “cells” as the units of plant structure. With the aid of a microscope he examined a wide range of materials and substances including feathers, lice, fl eas, and cork. His observations were published in Micrographia (1665), a famous work on the wonders of microscopy. He fi rst recognized that charcoal, cork, and plant tissues were “all perforated and porous, much like a honeycomb.” To these pores he gave the name cells although the cell walls (interstitia) were not considered a constituent part. He stated “for in several of these vegetables whilst green, I have with my microscope plainly enough discovered these cells fi lled with juices, and by degrees sweating them out.” Anton Van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723) This Dutch microscopist, called “Father of Scientifi c Microscopy,” was a cloth merchant and wine taster by trade. His works were published under title Secrets of Nature (1668). He refers to animacules or “little animals.” Van Leeuwenhoek extended Malpighi’s demonstration of blood capillaries and six years later gave the fi rst accurate description of red blood corpuscles, completing Harveys’ (1578–1657) discovery of the circulation of the blood in 1628. He discovered the effect of aphids on plant life and showed that they reproduced parthenogenetically. He described different stem structures in monocots and dicots. He understood the nature of red blood corpuscles and studied human male spermatozoa. He observed polyembryony in citrus seed. He was respon-A.V. Leeuwenhoek2 Lecture 29sible for the fi rst representation of bacteria by a drawing in 1683. He constructed over 400 microscopes and bequeathed 26 to the Royal Society of London.Plant AnatomyMarcello Malpighi (1628–1694) Malpighi was an Italian physician, anatomist, physiologist, and a pioneer microscopist. He graduated in medicine in 1653, became lecturer in 1656, and was appointed to the chair of Theoretical Medicine at the University of Pisa, Italy. He was Professor at Messina, but eventually returned to Bologna, his birthplace, where he spent the next 25 years. He became the personal physician to Pope Innocent XII. His major contribution was Anatome Plantarum (1675).Malphigi was one of the fi rst to utilize the microscope in the study of animal and vegetable structure and is considered the founder of microscopic anatomy. He applied himself to vegetable histology and became acquainted with spiral vessels of plants in 1662. He made the important discovery that the layers of tissues in leaves and young shoots are continuous with those of the main stem. He distinguished fi bers, tubes, and other constituents of wood and was the fi rst to understand the food functions of leaves. He ob-served stomata in leaves and nodules on legume roots. He realized that the ovule developed into a seed and the carpel into a fruit or a portion thereof. He arrived at the curious conclusion that the fl ower leaves were organs for the excretion of ignoble saps in preparation for fruit formation. He fi rst observed the circulation of the blood.Nehemiah Grew (1641–1712) Grew, co-founder of plant anatomy with Malpighi, was born in Cov-entry, England. He was a practicing physician fi rst in Coventry and then in London and became secretary of the Royal Society. His work in plant anatomy began in 1664 with the object of comparing plant and animal tissues and his essay, read before the Royal Society of London in 1670, was published one year later. (Malphighi, working independently on the same subject in Italy, also sent his work to the Royal Society and an abstract was read at the December, 1671 meeting where Grew’s manuscript, now in print, was “laid on the table.” Both works then bear the same date although Grew is entitled to priority.) The second part of Grew’s treatise appeared in May, 1672 and a third in the spring of 1674. The object of the work is indicated by Grew’s preface, “by thus comparing of them (i.e., the several plants or parts of plants) we shall be able more exactly to state the orders and virtues.” He approached botany from the medical standpoint (as in herbals) but his knowledge of animal and human anatomy opened his mind to the possibilities of similar work with plants.Grew’s fundamental thesis was that every plant organ consists of two “organical parts essentially distinct,” that is, a “pithy part” and the ligneous part. In the seed, “the pithy part” is composed of “parenchyma,” a term fi rst used by Grew. He described stages of seed germination although the under-lying physiology was hopelessly confused. He used the term “radicle”
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