12 



General Remarks 



Cytology in the proper sense is, as intimated in the beginning of this 

 discussion, a broad field, taking its data from a wide range of sciences 

 both biological and physical, and concerning itself with the fundamental 

 principles involved in the behavior of living stuff generally. The tech- 

 niques of experiment and analysis are largely derived from those of math- 

 ematics, chemistry, and physics, and almost every biological problem 

 may be said to have a cytological vector whether or not it is apparent 

 as such. In 1925 the late Professor E. B. Wilson could write a scholarly 

 treatise which was nearly all-embracing, but 30 years later it would be 

 difficult to cover the field equally well in five or six volumes and no one 

 man could be sufficiently at ease in all branches to manage the compila- 

 tion alone. The modern counterpart of E. B. Wilson's The Cell is the 

 multivolumed work by the same name edited by J. Brachet and A. 

 Mirsky and containing the contributions of a host of specialists. No 

 textbook, including this one, can provide more than a glimpse of the 

 field or serve as anything other than an introduction to an area of bio- 

 logical science which is fascinating, frustrating, and extremely funda- 

 mental. The basic concept upon which cytology was founded, namely, 

 the notion that the cell is the unit of structure and function, remains the 

 essential basis of cellular biology. The cell has also been firmly estab- 

 lished as the unit of inheritance, both chromosomal and cytoplasmic, and 

 may also be looked upon as the unit which makes evolution possible. 

 Likewise it may be considered the unit of disease and, in many respects, 

 the unit by which control over disease may be exercised. Consciously or 

 otherwise, the cytologist works towards the day when he can, as Carl 



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