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Discovery

Numerous descriptions of cell division were made during 18th and 19th centuries, with various degrees of accuracy. In 1835, the German botanist Hugo von Mohl, described cell division in the green algae Cladophora glomerata, stating that multiplication of cells occurs through cell division. In 1838, Matthias Jakob Schleiden affirmed that "formation of new cells in their interior was a general rule for cell multiplication in plants", a view later rejected in favour of Mohl's model, due to contributions of Robert Remak and others.

In animal cells, cell division with mitosis was discovered in frog, rabbit, and cat cornea cells in 1873 and described for the first time by the Polish histologist Wacław Mayzel in 1875.

Bütschli, Schneider and Fol might have also claimed the discovery of the process presently known as "mitosis". In 1873, the German zoologist Otto Bütschli published data from observations on nematodes. A few years later, he discovered and described mitosis based on those observations.

The term "mitosis", coined by Walther Flemming in 1882, is derived from the Greek word μίτος (mitos, "warp thread"). There are some alternative names for the process, e.g., "karyokinesis" (nuclear division), a term introduced by Schleicher in 1878, or "equational division", proposed by August Weismann in 1887. However, the term "mitosis" is also used in a broad sense by some authors to refer to karyokinesis and cytokinesis together. Presently, "equational division" is more commonly used to refer to meiosis II, the part of meiosis most like mitosis.