Modern descriptions of the cell are intimately related to the notion of cell membranes. Apart from its purely historical relevance, this account can provide a starting point for considering the theoretical significance of membranes to the definition of the cell and could have implications for research on early life.

How were the cell boundaries considered between the articulation of the Cell Theory around 1839 and the formulation of the fluid mosaic model that has described the cell membranes since 1972? In this review I will summarize the major historical discoveries and theories that tackled the existence and structure of membranes and I will analyze how these theories impacted the understanding of the cell. It was not until well into the XX th century that the existence of the plasma membrane was broadly accepted and, even then, the fluid mosaic model did not prevail until the 1970s. When the Cell Theory was first formulated in the XIX th century, almost nothing was known about the cell membranes. This statement is so widely accepted by biologists that little attention is generally given to the theoretical importance of cell membranes in describing the cell.

All modern cells are bounded by cell membranes best described by the fluid mosaic model.

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