From Despair to Discovery: The Botanical Odyssey of Matthias Jakob Schleiden and the Dawn of Cell Theory

The first book-length biography of Matthias Jakob Schleiden in English.

The career of Matthias Jakob Schleiden, who was to transform botany into a rigorous scientific discipline, began with a gunshot. As a youth he had loved art and learning languages, and was not sure what he should do with his life. Under pressure from his parents, he had gone to law school in 1824 and returned to his hometown. Now, four years later, his practice was failing, and everything seemed hopeless. In despair, he shot himself in the head.

Happily, the 28-year-old Schleiden recovered, and very reasonably considered a change in profession. He ended up in medical school in Göttingen, where he came across a charismatic professor of botany, spent time in the botanical gardens, and later left for Berlin to study with an amazing gathering of scientific luminaries.

Much of Schleiden’s subsequent career is the stuff of legend. In 1838 he and his friend Theodor Schwann went to dinner, during which they developed the first version of cell theory, which stated that cells comprise the basic units of all living organisms. A few weeks later, Schleiden made another suicidal attempt following an unhappy romance, recovered again, and returned to publish in 1842 a book which helped transform botany from a philosophical enterprise to a scientific field of study based on observation and experimentation. His unlikely career path was to take him to Russia, where he became a Professor of Anthropology, and then back to Germany, where he published a book of poetry and a monograph on the history and symbolism of the rose.

In this book, Dr. Mendelson applies his 40 years of experience as a psychiatrist and neuroscientist to illuminate Schleiden’s life. He considers the influences of his upbringing and his mentors, as well as the context of the science and culture of his era. Of particular note is the importance to Schleiden of the Romantic movement, which produced an outlook on life to which he was drawn, while eschewing its implications for science. The result is an insightful portrait of Schleiden, whose remarkable life changed the course of botany, and indeed all of biology.