Shaira's Escapade [COMPLETED]

Chapter 5

NOTE: Those sentences/words in Italic with Bold are facts about the Cell Theory Timeline.

At the beginning of the newspaper, it stated that Rodulf Virchow was one of the foremost leaders in medicine and pathology. He was also a public health activist, social reformer, politician, and anthropologist. Virchow's greatest accomplishment was his observation that a whole organism does not get sick, only certain cells or groups of cells. In 1855, at the age of 34, he published his now-famous aphorism "omnis cellula e cellula" ("every cell stems from another cell"). 

Omnis cellula e cellula, that each cell derives from a pre-existing cell by division, is the culmination of a profound insight of the late 19th century and a dictum articulated by the German pathologist Rudolf Virchow. Since that time, cells have continuously divided. At first, they existed as single cells. He also stated that all diseases involve changes in normal cells, that is, all pathology ultimately is cellular pathology.

Shaira gave the newspaper back to the vendor and walked back to the library to search more about cell theory. She felt like she needed to know more to identify what was really happening. She felt like she's time traveling and discovered that she couldn't put her feelings into words.

Before she reached the library's door... 

A total cloudburst, thunder cracking, and grumbling in the skies cause chaos. Shaira wondered why everyone was in a panic. She tried to ask one of the people from the crowd, but they ignored her.

Another loud thunder cracking makes everyone huddled and sit on their haunches. When she turned her head around to find a vacant place, sudden lightning struck her that made her close her eyes.

She thought that she was going to die, but she did not feel any pain. She opened her eyes and saw that she was inside a clinic. Everyone in the clinic is busy. It seems that there is a valuable guess coming to visit this place.

A lady wearing a laboratory coat scolded her to move to the side because she was blocking the way. She was going to move aside but then a man approached her and asked if she could help her to bring the pile of papers. She simply nodded and followed him.

"What's your name, young lady?" The man asked politely.

"Shaira." She answered.

The man extended his hand to do a handshake with her and said, "Nice to meet you, Shaira. My name is Friedrich Miescher. I am a Swiss physiological chemist. " Shaira simply smiled at him in return.

Mr. Friedrich started to share his story while arranging his equipment. He told her that he made arrangements to have a local surgical clinic send him to use pus-coated patient bandages, which he planned to wash, filter out the leukocytes, and extract and identify the various proteins inside the white blood cells once he received them and this is his second time to be here. Also, he told Shaira that he believed he had discovered a novel substance when he found a substance from the cell nuclei that had chemical features, unlike any protein.

Shaira thought that he was a nice person, then she remembered what her temporary teacher in Biology had told them, "In 1869, Friedrich Miescher isolated "nuclein," DNA with associated proteins, from cell nuclei. He was the first to identify DNA as a distinct molecule. The term "nuclein" was later changed to "nucleic acid" and eventually to "deoxyribonucleic acid or "DNA"."

She was going to follow Mr. Friedrich but the book that she was holding all this time opened on its own and turned its pages. She saw the picture of an old man and unconsciously read his name out loud, "Camillo Golgi."

(Photo: https://www.pinterest.de/pin/432134526719003421/)