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FAMOUS PEOPLE IN BIOLOGY
Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC) - Greek Philosopher
Aristotle is a towering figure in ancient Greek philosophy, making contributions to logic, metaphysics,
mathematics, physics, biology, botany, ethics, politics, agriculture, medicine, dance and theatre. He was
a student of Plato who in turn studied under Socrates. He was more empirically-minded than Plato or
Socrates and is famous for rejecting Plato’s theory of forms.
Aristotle sees the universe as a scale lying between the two extremes: form without matter is on one
end, and matter without form is on the other end. The passage of matter into form must be shown in its
various stages in the world of nature. To do this is the object of Aristotle’s physics, or philosophy of
nature. It is important to keep in mind that the passage from form to matter within nature is a
movement towards ends or purposes. Everything in nature has its end and function, and nothing is
without its purpose. Everywhere we find evidences of design and rational plan. No doctrine of physics
can ignore the fundamental notions of motion, space, and time. Motion is the passage of matter into
form, and it is of four kinds: (1) motion which affects the substance of a thing, particularly its beginning
and its ending; (2) motion which brings about changes in quality; (3) motion which brings about changes
in quantity, by increasing it and decreasing it; and (4) motion which brings about locomotion, or change
of place. Of these the last is the most fundamental and important.
Aristotle is properly recognized as the originator of the scientific study of life.
Aristotle believed that creatures were arranged in a graded scale of perfection rising from plants on up
to man, the scala naturae or Great Chain of Being. His system had eleven grades, arranged according "to
the degree to which they are infected with potentiality", expressed in their form at birth. The highest
animals laid warm and wet creatures alive, the lowest bore theirs cold, dry, and in thick eggs.

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Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) - French chemist and microbiology
“In the field of observation, chance favors only the prepared mind.”
Whose contributions were among the most varied and valuable in the history of science and industry. It
was he who proved that microorganisms cause fermentation and disease; he who pioneered the use of
vaccines for rabies, anthrax, and chicken cholera; he who saved the beer, wine, and silk.
He and also his wife, Marie, are best known for their experiments supporting the Germ theory of
disease, and he is also known for his vaccinations, most notably the first vaccine against rabies. He made
many discoveries in the field of chemistry, most notably the asymmetry (different shapes) of crystals. He
is also well known for his way of keeping milk and wine from going sour for longer. That process is called
pasteurization.
He is regarded as one of the three main founders of microbiology, together with Ferdinand Cohn and
Robert Koch.
Awards:
Pasteur won the Leeuwenhoek medal, microbiology's highest Dutch honor in Arts and Sciences, in 1895.
Both Institute Pasteur and Université Louis Pasteur were named after him.
He was made a Knight of the Legion of Honour in 1853, promoted to Commander in 1868, to Grand
Officer in 1878 and made a Grand Croix of the Legion of Honor–one of only 75 in all of France - in 1881.
On June 8, 1886, the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II awarded Pasteur with the Order of the Medjidie (I.
Class) and 10000 Ottoman liras.

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Charles Darwin (1809–1882) - British naturalist
Eminent as a collector and geologist, who proposed and provided scientific evidence that all species of
life have evolved over time from common ancestors through the process he called natural selection.
He was an English naturalist. He is famous for his work on the theory of evolution. His book On the Origin
of Species (1859) did two things. First, it provided a great deal of evidence that evolution has taken
place. Second, it proposed a theory to explain how evolution works. That theory is natural selection.
Evolution by natural selection is the key to understanding biology, and the diversity of life on Earth.
The theory of evolution says that all living things on Earth, including plants, animals and microbes, come
from a common ancestor by slowly changing throughout the generations. Darwin suggested that the way
living things changed over time is through natural selection. This is the better survival and reproduction
of those that best fit their environment. Fitting into the place where you live is called adapting. Those
who fit best into the place where they live, the best adapted, have the best chance to survive and breed.
Those who are less well-adapted tend not to survive. If they do not survive well enough to raise young,
this means they do not pass on their genes. In this way, the species gradually changes.

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Gregor Mendel (1822–1884) - Czech-Austrian monk
Who is often called the "father of genetics" or his study of the inheritance of traits in pea plants.
He was a German-speaking Silesian scientist and Augustinian friar who gained posthumous fame as the
founder of the new science of genetics. Mendel demonstrated that the inheritance of certain traits in
pea plants follows particular patterns, now referred to as the laws of Mendelian inheritance. The
profound significance of Mendel's work was not recognized until the turn of the 20th century, when the
independent rediscovery of these laws initiated the modern science of genetics.
Mendel presented his paper, Versuche über Pflanzenhybriden (Experiments on Plant Hybridization), at
two meetings of the Natural History Society of Brünn in Moravia in 1865. It was received favorably and
generated reports in several local newspapers. When Mendel's paper was published in 1866 in
Verhandlungen des naturforschenden Vereins Brünn, it was seen as essentially about hybridization
rather than inheritance and had little impact and was cited about three times over the next thirty-five
years. (Notably, Charles Darwin was unaware of Mendel's paper, according to Jacob Bronowski's The
Ascent of Man.) His paper was criticized at the time, but is now considered a seminal work.
Mendel's work was rejected at first, and was not widely accepted until after he died. During his own
lifetime, most biologists held the idea that all characteristics were passed to the next generation through
blending inheritance, in which the traits from each parent are averaged together. Instances of this
phenomenon are now explained by the action of multiple genes with quantitative effects. Charles
Darwin tried unsuccessfully to explain inheritance through a theory of pangenesis. It was not until the
early 20th century that the importance of Mendel's ideas was realized.

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Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829)
Naturalist, French evolutionist, coined many terms like biology and fossils
Although the name "Lamarck" is now associated with a discredited view of evolution, the French
biologist's notion that organisms inherit the traits acquired during their parents' lifetime had common
sense on its side. In fact, the "inheritance of acquired characters" continued to have supporters well into
the 20th century.
Lamarck’s Evolution:
Lamarck stressed two main themes in his biological work. The first was that the environment gives rise to
changes in animals. He cited examples of blindness in moles, the presence of teeth in mammals and the
absence of teeth in birds as evidence of this principle. The second principle was that life was structured
in an orderly manner and that many different parts of all bodies make it possible for the organic
movements of animals.
Although he was not the first thinker to advocate organic evolution, he was the first to develop a truly
coherent evolutionary theory. He outlined his theories regarding evolution first in his Floreal lecture of
1800, and then in three later published works:
 Recherches sur l'organisation des corps vivants, 1802.
 Philosophie Zoologique, 1809.
 Histoire naturelle des animaux sans vertèbres, (in seven volumes, 1815–1822).
Lamarck employed several mechanisms as drivers of evolution, drawn from the common knowledge of
his day and from his own belief in chemistry pre-Lavoisier. He used these mechanisms to explain the two
forces he saw as comprising evolution; a force driving animals from simple to complex forms, and a force
adapting animals to their local environments and differentiating them from each other. He believed that
these forces must be explained as a necessary consequence of basic physical principles, favoring a
materialistic attitude toward biology.

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Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723) - Dutch biologist, developer of the microscope
He is commonly known as "the Father of Microbiology", and considered to be the first microbiologist. He
is best known for his work on the improvement of the microscope and for his contributions towards the
establishment of microbiology. Using his handcrafted microscopes he was the first to observe and
describe single celled organisms, which he originally referred to as animalcules, and which we now refer
to as microorganisms. He was also the first to record microscopic observations of muscle fibers, bacteria,
spermatozoa and blood flow in capillaries (small blood vessels).
Leeuwenhoek made more than 500 optical lenses. He also created at least 25 microscopes, of differing
types, of which only nine survived. His microscopes were made of silver or copper frames, holding hand-
made lenses. Those that have survived are capable of magnification up to 275 times. It is suspected that
Leeuwenhoek possessed some microscopes that could magnify up to 500 times. Although he has been
widely regarded as a dilettante or amateur, his scientific research was of remarkably high quality.
Leeuwenhoek maintained throughout his life that there are aspects of microscope construction "which I
only keep for myself", in particular his most critical secret of how he created lenses. For many years no-
one was able to reconstruct Leeuwenhoek's design techniques. However, in 1957 C.L. Stong used thin
glass thread fusing instead of polishing, and successfully created some working samples of a
Leeuwenhoek design microscope. Such a method was also discovered independently by A. Mosolov and
A. Belkin at the Russian Novosibirsk State Medical Institute.

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Albert Bruce Sabin (1906-1993) – Polish-American physician and microbiologist
Best known for developing the oral polio vaccine. He was also known for his research in the fields of
human viral diseases, toxoplasmosis, and cancer.
Sabin developed a live-virus vaccine that was first tested in 1954. By that time, however, the killed-virus
vaccine developed by Jonas Edward Salk (1914-1995), had already been developed and tested and was
commercially available in 1955. The Salk vaccine, which is injected, proved effective in sharply reducing
the number of poliomyelitis cases in the US. Sabin, however, persisted in his efforts to develop a vaccine
based on a living virus. He postulated that live, attenuated virus, administered orally, would provide
immunity over a longer period of time than killed, injected virus.
By 1957 he had isolated strains of each of the three types of polio virus. These strains were not strong
enough to produce the disease itself but were capable of stimulating the production of antibodies. He
then proceeded to conduct preliminary experiments in the oral administration of these attenuated
strains. The vaccine was developed by him and his colleagues at the University of Cincinnati.
Co-operative studies were then conducted with scientists from Mexico, The Netherlands, and the Soviet
Union, and finally, in extensive field trials on children, the effectiveness of the new vaccine was
conclusively demonstrated. In 1958 and 1959 the vaccine was tested in millions of people in the Soviet
Union between and proved successful.
The Sabin oral polio vaccine, commonly administered on a lump of sugar, was approved for use in the
United States in 1960 and became the main defence against polio throughout the world. People
vaccinated with Sabin's vaccine only infected others with a much weakened version of the disease and
this conferred immunity to the unvaccinated population too. It was licensed in 1961 and became the
vaccine of choice in most parts of the world.
The Sabin vaccine suffered a temporary setback when public health officials reported that a few children
(about 1 in one million inoculated) developed polio because of the vaccine. Dr. Sabin, however, never
admitted that his vaccine was responsible.

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Thomas Hunt Morgan (1868–1945) - American geneticist
He was an American evolutionary biologist, geneticist and embryologist and science author who won the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1933 for discoveries relating the role the chromosome plays in
heredity.
Following the rediscovery of Mendelian inheritance in 1900, Morgan's research moved to the study of
mutation in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. In his famous Fly Room at Columbia University Morgan
was able to demonstrate that genes are carried on chromosomes and are the mechanical basis of
heredity. These discoveries formed the basis of the modern science of genetics. When he was awarded
the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1933 he was the first person awarded the Prize in genetics,
for his discoveries concerning the role played by the chromosome in heredity.
Morgan left an important legacy in genetics. Morgan's findings about genes and their location on
chromosomes helped transform biology into an experimental science."
 Johns Hopkins awarded Morgan an honorary LL.D. and the University of Kentucky awarded him
an honorary Ph.D.
 He was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences and made a foreign member of
the Royal Society.
 In 1924 Morgan received the Darwin Medal.
 The Thomas Hunt Morgan School of Biological Sciences at the University of Kentucky is named for
him.
 The Genetics Society of America annually awards the Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal, named in his
honor, to one of its members who has made a significant contribution to the science of genetics.
 Thomas Hunt Morgan's discovery was illustrated on a 1989 stamp issued in Sweden, showing the
discoveries of eight Nobel Prize-winning geneticists.
 A junior high school in Shoreline, Washington was named in Morgan's honor for the latter half of
the 20th century.

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Robert Koch (1843–1910) - German Nobel Prize winning physician and bacteriologist
He became famous for isolating Bacillus anthracis (1877), the tuberculosis bacillus (1882) and the vibrio
cholera (1883) and for his development of Koch's postulates. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in
Physiology or Medicine for his tuberculosis findings in 1905. He is considered one of the founders of
microbiology - he inspired such major figures as Paul Ehrlich and Gerhard Domagk.
The first disease that Koch investigated was anthrax. This was a disease that could seriously affect herds
of farm animals and farmers were rightly in fear of it. Other scientists had also been working on anthrax.
In 1868, a French scientist called Davaine had proved that a healthy animal that did not have anthrax
could get the disease if it was injected with blood containing anthrax. Koch developed this work further
and for three years he spent all his spare time finding out what he could about the disease, including its
life cycle.
Koch found out that the anthrax microbe produced spores that lived for a long time after an animal had
died. He also proved that these spores could then develop into the anthrax germ and could infect other
animals.
After this, Koch moved onto germs that specifically affected humans. In 1878, he identified the germ that
caused blood poisoning and septicaemia. He also developed new techniques for conducting experiments
that influenced the way many other scientists carried out their experiments. He knew that infected
blood contained the septicaemia germ but he could not see these germs under a microscope, and
therefore, other scientists were unlikely to believe what he thought to be true without the evidence.
Koch discovered that methyl violet dye showed up the septicaemia germ under a microscope by staining
it. He also photographed the germs so that people outside of his laboratory could see them.
Koch also devised a method of proving which germ caused an infection. His work was rewarded in 1880
when he was appointed to a post at the Imperial Health Office in Berlin. Here, Koch perfected the
technique of growing pure cultures of germs using a mix of potatoes and gelatine. This was a solid

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enough substance to allow for the germs to be studied better. Koch gathered round him a team of
researchers in Berlin in 1881 and began to work on one of the worst diseases of the nineteenth century –
tuberculosis (TB).
The TB germ was much smaller than the anthrax germ so the search for it was difficult. Using a more
specialised version of his dye technique, Koch and his team searched for the TB germ. In May 1882, Koch
announced that his team had found the germ. His announcement caused great excitement. It also
generated what became known as ‘microbe hunters’ – a new generation of young scientists who were
inspired by the work of both Koch and Pasteur. One of those who was inspired by Koch was Paul Ehrlich.
What was Koch’s legacy? He had finally laid to rest the belief that ‘bad air’ caused disease. He had
inspired many other younger researchers to build on his work. He had found the germs of two feared
diseases – anthrax and TB. He had developed research techniques that others could use throughout the
world.
By 1900, twenty-one germs that caused diseases had been identified in just 21 years. "As soon as the
right method was found, discoveries came as easily as ripe apples from a tree." (Koch) It was Koch who
had developed the right methods

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Joseph Lister (1827-1912) - British surgeon - “Father of Modern Surgery”
In medicine, the theory that certain diseases are caused by the invasion of the body by microorganisms,
organisms too small to be seen except through a microscope. The French chemist and microbiologist
Louis Pasteur, the English surgeon Joseph Lister, and the German physician Robert Koch are given much
of the credit for development and acceptance of the theory of germ.
ister’s first clue as to the cause of infection came from comparing patients who had simple fractures with
those who had compound fractures. Simple fractures do not involve an external wound. These patients
had their bones set and placed in a cast, and they recovered. Compound fractures are those where the
broken bone pierces the skin and is exposed to the air. More than half of these patients died. Lister
reasoned that somehow the infection must enter the wound from the outside. But how exactly did this
occur? And what could be done to prevent it?
Lister began washing his hands before operating, and wearing clean clothes. (Others such as Florence
Nightingale, the pioneer of modern nursing, had already found that increased cleanliness reduced the
death rate from infection among hospital patients. However, these ideas had not yet gained widespread
acceptance because the reason behind their success was not understood.) Even though Lister’s
procedures were scoffed at by some of his colleagues, who considered it a status symbol to be covered
in blood from previous operations, his talent was becoming recognized. In 1860 he became Professor of
Surgery at Glasgow. There, a friend lent him some research papers by the outstanding French chemist,
Louis Pasteur. (Like Lister, Pasteur was a committed Christian.)

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As the son of a wine merchant, Lister was all too familiar with the problem of wine going bad because of
faulty fermentation. Pasteur had shown that the problem was caused by germs which entered from the
air, and that organisms did not come to life spontaneously from non-living matter within the wine.
Pasteur had demonstrated that life arose from life. His experiments gave no support to the evolutionary
idea that the first life arose from non-living matter—a belief still held today by evolutionists. Unlike the
evolutionists, whose thinking was held back by their attachment to the idea of spontaneous generation,
Lister immediately recognized the truth and usefulness of Pasteur’s work. If infection arose
spontaneously within a wound, it would be virtually impossible to eliminate it. However, if germs
entering from the air outside the wound caused infection (in the same way that the wine became
contaminated), then those germs could be killed and infection prevented.
Above: An operation in progress in the late 1800s. The man on the right is using a version of Lister’s carbolic spray.
Pasteur had used heat and filters to eliminate the germs in the wine, but these techniques were not
suitable for use with human flesh. Instead, Lister needed to find a suitable chemical to kill the germs. He
learned that carbolic acid was being used as an effective disinfectant in sewers and could safely be used
on human flesh. Beginning in 1865, Lister used carbolic acid to wash his hands, his instruments, and the
bandages used in the operation. Lister also sprayed the air with carbolic acid to kill airborne germs. After
more than a year of using and refining these techniques, Lister had sufficient data to show that his
methods were a success. He published his findings in the medical journal, The Lancet, in 1867.
Lister was always eager to acknowledge Louis Pasteur’s invaluable contribution. In a letter to Pasteur in
February 1874, Lister gave him ‘thanks for having, by your brilliant researches, proved to me the truth of
the germ theory. You furnished me with the principle upon which alone the antiseptic system can be
carried out.’

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OTHER FAMOUS PEOPLE IN BIOLOGY:
1. Robert Hooke
(1635-1703)
English Scientist -
Development of
“Microscopy”
Hooke's reputation in the history of biology largely rests on his book
Micrographia, published in 1665. Hooke devised the compound
microscope and illumination system shown above, one of the best such
microscopes of his time, and used it in his demonstrations at the Royal
Society's meetings. With it he observed organisms as diverse as insects,
sponges, bryozoans, foraminifera, and bird feathers.
2. Andreas
Vesalius
(1541-1564)
Anatomist and
Physician -
“founder of
modern human
anatomy”
He was the author of one of the most influential books on human
anatomy, De humani corporis fabrica, (1543), (On the Workings of the
Human Body). This work, considering the era, showed fairly accurate
drawings of various internal organs and tissues. The illustrations were
done by a fellow Belgian, Jan van Calcar, who had studied under none
other than Titian himself. It was a large work of about 700 pages and he
discusses the skeletal system, muscles, circulatory system, nerves and
internal organs. The only really serious error in this work was his
postulation of "pores" through which he supposed blood to flow from one
side of the heart to the other. (Although pores are found in many
vertebrates.)
3. Galen
AD 129–ca.
200 or 216
Greek Physician During his life he produced five hundred books and treatises on all aspects
of medical science and philosophical subjects and his ideas were to
formulate many of the scientific beliefs which dominated medical thinking
for about 1 500 years. Galen was the great compiler and systemiser of
Greco-Roman medicine, physiology, pharmacy and anatomy. Because he
displayed a view of God and nature shared by the Christians of the Middle
Ages and the Renaissance, he was regarded by them as a fellow-Christian.
Galen's influence can be still seen today. The word " galenic" is used to
describe drugs and medicines made from vegetable and animal ingredients
using prescribed methods.
4. Robert Brown
(1773–1858)
From Scotland,
Botanist (abbr. in
botany : R.Br.)
The Investigator(a ship from england) arrived in King George Sound in
what is now Western Australia in December 1801. For three and a half
years Brown did intensive botanic research in Australia, collecting about
3400 species, of which about 2000 were previously unknown. A large part
of this collection was lost, however, when the Porpoise (a ship) was
wrecked en route to England.
He published numerous species descriptions; in Western Australia alone
he is the author of nearly 1200 species. In 1810, he published the results of
his collecting in his famous Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae
Van Diemen, the first systematic account of the Australian flora.
5. Alexander
Fleming
(1881–1955)
Scottish biologist
and
pharmacologist.
Fleming published many articles on bacteriology, immunology, and
chemotherapy. His best-known achievements are the discovery of the
enzyme lysozyme in 1922 and the discovery of the antibiotic substance
penicillin from the fungus Penicillium notatum in 1928, for which he
shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945 with Florey and
Chain.

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6. Carolus
Linnaeus
(1707–1778)
Swedish botanist;
father of the
binomial name
(abbr L. or Linn.)
Laid the foundations for the modern scheme of Binomial nomenclature.
He is known as the father of modern taxonomy, and is also considered one
of the fathers of modern ecology. In biology, binomial nomenclature is the
formal system of naming specific species. The system is also called
binominal nomenclature (particularly in zoological circles), binary
nomenclature (particularly in botanical circles), or the binomial
classification system – modern for scientific name.
I. Binomial “Naming” rule (combination of 2 words):
1. the genus name (also called the generic name).
2. a second word identifying the species within that genus, for which
the technical term varies, as follows:
a general term for the word identifying the species is the
specific descriptor
in zoology, the word identifying the species is called the
specific name
in botany, the word identifying the species is called the
specific epithet
II. Taxonomy: sometimes alpha taxonomy, is the science of finding,
describing and categorising organisms, thus giving rise to taxonomic
groups or taxa (singular: taxon), which may then be named.
7. Rudolf
Virchow
(1821–1902)
German biologist
and pathologist,
founder of cell
theory
He is referred to as the "Father of Pathology," and founded the field of
Social Medicine. His most widely known is indeed his cell theory. He is
cited as the first to recognize leukemia. However, he is perhaps best
known for his theory Omnis cellula e cellula ("every cell originates from
another existing cell like it.") which he published in 1858. Another
significant credit relates to the discovery, made approximately
simultaneously by Virchow and Charles Emile Troisier, that an enlarged left
supra-clavicular node is one of the earliest signs of gastrointestinal
malignancy, commonly of the stomach, or less commonly, lung cancer.
This has become known as Virchow's node and simultaneously Troisier's
sign.
Virchow is also famous for elucidating the mechanism of pulmonary
thromboembolism, coining the term embolism. He noted that blood clots
in the pulmonary artery originate first from venous thrombi, stating: "The
detachment of larger or smaller fragments from the end of the softening
thrombus which are carried along by the current of blood and driven into
remote vessels. This gives rise to the very frequent process on which I have
bestowed the name of Embolia.". He founded the medical disciplines of
cellular pathology, comparative pathology (comparison of diseases
common to humans and animals).
8. William Henry
Harvey
(1811–1866)
Irish phycologist. Harvey's discovery in 1831 of the moss Hookeria laetevirens at Killarney.
Harvey was an authority on algae and bryophytes (mosses), and author of
A Manual of the British Algae (1841), Phycologia Britannica (4 vols., 1846–
51), Nereis Boreali-Americana. (3 parts 1852–85) and Phycologia Australica
(5 vol., 1858–63). He spent several years in South Africa, and was the
author, with Otto Wilhelm Sonder, of the Flora Capensis (7 vol. in 11,
1859–1933). Harvey's main algal herbarium is in Trinity College, Dublin.

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9. William Harvey
(1578–1657)
English physician Who is credited with being the first in the Western world to describe
correctly and in exact detail the systemic circulation and properties of
blood being pumped around the body by the heart.
10.Félix Dujardin
(1802-1860)
biologist Known for his study of protozoans and other invertebrates. Dujardin is
primarily known for his work with microscopic animal life, and in 1834
proposed that a new group of one-celled organisms be called Rhizopoda;
meaning "root-foot. This name was later changed to Protozoa. He refuted
naturalist Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg's (1795–1876) concept that
microscopic organisms are "complete organisms" similar to higher animals.
In Foraminifera, he noticed an apparently formless life substance that he
named "sarcode"; which was later renamed protoplasm by Hugo von Mohl
(1805-1872). Dujardin also did extensive research regarding other
invertebrate groups including echinoderms, helminths and cnidarians.
Reference:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
 http://www.answersingenesis.org
 http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk
 http://www.nobelprize.org