Discovery of the red blood cell
Descubrimiento del eritrocito
- Date
- 1658 · confidence high
- Place
- Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Credited to
- Jan Swammerdam
- Field
- Life & health
What was discovered
Jan Swammerdam was the first to observe red blood cells, examining frog blood under a microscope and identifying corpuscles later named erythrocytes. His finding went largely unnoticed until Malpighi and Leeuwenhoek described them independently.
Swammerdam's work stayed unpublished for years; Marcello Malpighi (1666) and Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1674) rediscovered red blood cells independently.
What it led to
- The birth of microscopic hematology
- Later descriptions by Malpighi (1666) and Leeuwenhoek (1674)
- Understanding blood as a cellular tissue