How were chromosomes discovered?
The discovery of the chromosome was descriptive from the beginning and inseparably interwoven with the discoveries of the cell and the nucleus. All findings became possible only after Leeuwenhoeks invention of the microscope in 1674. In 1831 Robert Brown described the ‘areola’ in orchids being constantly detectable in all cells. He called this areola’the nucleus of the cel’.1838 M. J. Schleidens incorrect epigenetic theory claimed that a cell-nucleus is created de novo from the fluid of the cell. This served as a classical antithesis to Edouard van Benedens 1883 discovery that chromosomes are individual entities. In 1842 Karl Wilhelm von Ngeli discovered subcellular structures that would later became known as chromosomes. He had observed the ‘idioplasma’, a network of string like bodies which he falsely assumed to form an interlinked network throughout the entire organism. In 1873 Schneider had described the indirect division of the nucleus with a ‘Kernfigur'(nuclear figure) and an ‘ac