Discovery of red Blood Cells

Jan Swammerdam (1637-1680) in Amsterdam first identified red cells with a light microscope and he described them as ‘ruddy globules’.

As early as 1658 he described them in the blood of the frog, but his observations were not published till fifty-seven years after his death by Boerhaave. It was published in Biblia Naturae in 1738.

In 1661, Marcellus Malpighi observed the red blood corpuscles however he failed to recognized their nature mistaking them for fat globules.

In 1674, Anthony van Leeuwenhoek was first recognized red blood corpuscles as the elements responsible for the redness of the blood.

Credit for the discovery of the first cells is given to the English scientist Robert Hooke (1635-1701) who described the microscopic compartments of cork cells in 1665. He was the first person talk about cells.

Throughout the 17th and 18th century naturalist describe a wide variety of cell types, including human cells such as spermatozoa and red blood cells.

Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915) in Silesia, Germany and a pathologist, Rudolf Virchow (1821-1902) from Pomerania, Germany made great contribution in establishing a method for dry smear preparations of blood cells in peripheral blood and staining methods for these blood cells.

In 1897, the Austrian physician Karl Landsteiner discovered that there were four types of blood. He found that humans have four blood types A, B, AB and O.  
Discovery of red Blood Cells