Gravel in urine drawn by Robert Hooke, 1665. Hooke (1635-1703) was curator of experiments at the Royal Microscopical Society of London, which was founded in 1660. He used a compound microscope to view a wide range of specimens, then drew and published the results of his remarkably detailed observations. Some of the illustrations in Micrographia were supposedly done by Christopher Wren, the architect. Hooke is best remembered for his discovery of the fundamental unit of life, the cell, based on his observations of a section of cork.