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II 



T-^ife a?id the Cell 



FOR thousands of years mankind was unaware of the intricate detail 

 existing in the organic world. No doubt, thoughtful scientists sensed, 

 in a very real way, the unexplored universe to be revealed later by the 

 microscope and chaffed at the optical limitations of the human eye. 



Our entire concepts regarding the continuity of life, of function, of 

 reproduction and other topics are bound up with and verified by the 

 tremendous wealth of data revealed by the specially-shaped disks of glass 

 in our light microscopes and, lately, by the streams of electrons loosed 

 by the sensational electron microscope. 



When Hooke and Leeuwenhoek first saw the cells of cork and the 

 bacterial cell respectively, in the seventeenth century, the great search for 

 the constitution of matter and, indeed, for the mystery of hfe, had begun 

 in earnest. It was two hundred years later, however, before enough evi- 

 dence had been collected to warrant the theory that all organisms were 

 composed of cells. Once this theory was accepted, progress seemed to 

 come faster. The nucleus, the chromosomes, the cytoplasm, the other cell 

 bodies were examined and the wonderful stories connected with cell 

 division and later reduction division were pieced together. These studies 

 in turn made possible an understanding of the importance of the chromo- 

 somes in carrying factors for inheritance, the assortment of genes, chromo- 

 some changes resulting in mutations and other fundamental concepts. 



Man has always been interested in his origin and numerous theories have 

 been set forth, some with rather unconvincing assurance. It seems impos- 

 sible to many that such a highly organized structure as the cell could 

 have evolved from inorganic materials. Man's many futile attempts to 

 duplicate life are a subject of ridicule to the uninitiated. The layman must 

 always realize that the hardest riddles take the longest time to solve and, 

 in terms of biological history, we have scarcely started grappling with 

 the problem. Most scientists feel confident that some generation, in the not- 

 too-distant future, w ill have all the necessary factors at hand to answer the 

 riddle of life itself. We also feel confident that once this is solved, several 

 other as-yet unknown problems will arise to perplex them. The true 

 scientists are never perturbed at the thought that their contributions are 

 but bricks in the foundation. Science grows by insistent curiosity and 

 incessant hopefulness. 



40 



