Journal of Cell Science

The Journal of Cell Science (formerly the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science) is a peer-reviewed scientific journal in the field of cell biology. The journal is published by The Company of Biologists with 24 annual issues.

The journal was established in 1853 as the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science (Q. J. Microsc. Sci., ISSN 0370-2952). The founding editors were Edwin Lankester and George Busk. The publisher of the early issues was Samuel Highley of Fleet Street, London, with John Churchill and Sons (later J. & A. Churchill) taking over from 1856. The journal's original aims, as described in a preface to the first issue, were not limited to biology, but encompassed all branches of science related to the microscope:

Recent improvements in the Microscope having rendered that instrument increasingly available for scientific research, and having created a large class of observers who devote themselves to whatever department of science may be investigated by its aid, it has been thought that the time is come when a Journal devoted entirely to objects connected with the use of the Microscope would contribute to the advancement of science, and secure the co-operation of all interested in its various applications.

The object of this Journal will be the diffusion of information relating to all improvements in the construction of the Microscope, and to record the most recent and important researches made by its aid in different departments of science, whether in this country or on the continent. ...

It will undoubtedly be a Journal of Microscopy and Histology; but the first is a term but recently introduced into our language, and the last would give but a contracted view of the objects to which the Journal will be devoted.

Contributors to the first issue include Thomas Henry Huxley, Joseph Lister, William Crawford Williamson, and George Shadbolt. The contents of the early issues are diverse, and include original research articles, translations of papers published in other languages, transactions of the meetings of the Microscopical Society of London (later the Royal Microscopical Society), and book reviews. The journal also published short notes and memoranda, aimed "to gather up fragments of information, which singly might appear to be useless but together are of great importance to science"; the editors encouraged non-specialist submissions to this section, considering that "there are few possessors of a Microscope who have not met with some stray fact or facts which, published in this way, may not lead to important results." The editors also intended "to relieve the graver and more strictly scientific matter of the Journal by lighter contributions, such as will be found useful to the beginner, not uninteresting to the advanced observer, and of interest perhaps to the general reader."