If the insights revealed during this period seem “routine” today (some version of the phrase “The mitochondria are the cell’s energy factory” can inevitably be found in every high school science textbook), it’s because we’ve forgotten, as we often do, the spine-tingling awe that each of these discoveries generated in its time. I don’t think it’s hyperbolic to describe the transitions from the discovery of the cell to the revelation of its structural anatomy and, finally, to the elucidation of its functional anatomy as one of science’s most inspiring achievements.
