Biology is the study of living organisms, that is all plant and animal life, including man. Its significance is, therefore, obvious. However, its study started in the beginning as a result of man's curiosity about nature. He often wondered how small seedlings of plants developed into large trees and young ones of animals grew into full-sized animals resembling their parents. Nevertheless, his interest centered around plants and animals that he found useful for food, shelter and clothing, or were of medicinal value. He searched, hunted, collected and tried to preserve such species. In the process, he learnt to domesticate animals and grow plants at his convenience. This was the dawn of agriculture which changed his life altogether.
The study of biology as a science, however, started with the observations on plants and animals made by Aristotle, the great Greek philosopher and teacher, who is known as the father of biology. But the term 'biology' was coined later by a French naturalist, Jean Lamarck.
Till the middle ages, biology was a descriptive science, devoted to describing plants and animals on the basis of their external appearance as seen by the unaided eye. But the invention of the compound microscope in the seventeenth century made it possible to study the internal structure of plants as well as animals and extremely small micro-organisms like bacteria.
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