oct 4, 1840 - The discovery of sperm cells

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Albrecht von Roelliker was the first to conclude that sperm were cells located in the adult testes. Unlike previous attempts of uncovering what sperm was which concluded that sperm were parasitic animals. The idea that ‘parasitic animals’ lived in the semen was discovered by a dutch microscopist, Anton van Leewenhoek in 1678. However, the idea that sperm was a cell was not made evident till 1840. However, the conclusion A. von Roelliker made from the findings that sperm were cells was that the sperm excited the egg cell like a magnet to iron and that there was no union between the sperm and egg cell. This was later disproved in 1876 by Oscar Hertwig and Herman Fol when they microscopically observed Mediterrian Sea urchins and noticed that the sperm cell entered the egg cell and the two nuclei joined.

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