Abstract
A 14-year boy is given a microscope by his parents. It is not a toy – but a real microscope. He deploys it to rediscover the biology he had known before, but now in a magnified world. With extraordinary intellectual gifts he then, and manifestly later becomes absorbed by the idea that all this, however mysterious at first glance, might be subject to rational understanding, with painstaking study. Thus, was the genesis of one of the greatest cell biologists of the 20(th) century, Joseph Grafton Gall, who died 12 September 2024, at 96. He had been professionally active up until only a few years ago. There was no one like him in the modern era of cell biology and there will not be another figure like him anytime soon.