238 BIOLOGY AND ITS MAKERS 
As long ago as 1665 Robert Hooke, the great English 
microscopist, observed the cellular construction of cork, and 
described it as made up of “little boxes or cells distinguished 
from one another.” He made sketches of the appearance of 
this plant tissue; and, inasmuch as the drawings of Hooke 
are the earliest ones made of cells, they possess especial in- 
Fic. 72.—The Earliest Known Picture of Cells from Hooke’s 
Alicrographia (1665). From the edition of 1780. 
terest and consequently are reproduced here. Fig. 72, taken 
from the Micrographia, shows this earliest drawing of Hooke. 
He made thin sections with a sharp penknife; “and upon 
examination they were found to be all cellular or porous in 
the manner of a honeycomb, but not so regular.” 
We must not completely overlook the fact that Aristotle 
(384-322 B.c.) and Galen (130-200 A.D.), those profound 
thinkers on anatomical structure, had reached the theoretical 
position “that animals and plants, complex as they may 
