Presenting and Representing "The" Cell

Cell theory helped unify study of organisms into the single field called "biology." The earliest biology textbooks presented cells as fundamental units of life but focused on specific types of cell: skin cells made up skin, blood cells make up blood, and so on. The earliest images presented particular cells from specific organs and organisms. 

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Illustration of skin cells in 3 different figures HoverTouch to magnify
Skin cells

Huxley 18681

Illustration of multiple cells, showing different shape variations (star, branch, X, squiggle) HoverTouch to magnify
Specific cells showing a diversity of cell shapes

Sedgwick and Wilson 18862

Labeled diagram of a starfish ovum, larger circular shape with a smaller circular shape inside HoverTouch to magnify
A "slightly" diagrammatic starfish ovum

Sedgwick and Wilson 18862

In the United States, textbooks moved beyond particular cells to represent cells through a diagram of a generalized cell.

The diagrams evolved over time, offering the best available theoretical interpretations of general features of all cells.

Illustration showing parts of the nucleus, plastids, vacuole, centrosomes HoverTouch to magnify
A fully diagrammatic cell

Wilson 18963

diagrammatic cell 1921 HoverTouch to magnify
A fully diagrammatic cell

Sharp 19215

These representations of “the” cell show abstract conceptions of a general cell, a thing with all the essential components a cell needs to be a cell, to do what cells do.

Cell diagram with more intricate details of the golgi bodies, membrane, plasma-membrane, and other parts HoverTouch to magnify
Wilson's cell diagram, almost 2 decades later

Wilson 19254

But what do cells do? And how do we know, since we can only see so much through the microscope?
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  1. Huxley, Thomas Henry, and William Jay Youmans. The Elements of Physiology and Hygiene: A Text-book for Educational Institutions. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1868. Page 256, Figures 94-96.
  2. Sedgwick, William Thompson, and Edmund Beecher Wilson. An Introduction to General Biology. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1886. Page 49, Figure 20.
  3. Wilson, Edmund B. The Cell in Development and Heredity. New York: Macmillan Company, 1896. Page 53, Figure 24.
  4. Wilson, Edmund B. The Cell in Development and Heredity. New York: Macmillan Company, 1925. Page 14, Figure 5.
  5. Sharp, Lester W. An Introduction to Cytology. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1926. Page 24, Figure 1.