METACHEMOGENESIS— POSTEMERGENCE 



BIOCHEMICAL MATURATION IN 



INSECTS ' 



By morris ROCKSTEIN 

 New York University — Bellevue Medical Center, New York, N. Y. 



In April of 1946, with the resumption of my graduate studies at 

 the University of Minnesota after almost 4 years' absence, I was 

 fortunate in being able to enroll in a course in insect morphology 

 being given by Dr. R. E. Snodgrass, who was visiting professor in 

 entomology at that university at the time. This first meeting with 

 Dr. Snodgrass marked the beginning of a professional and personal 

 acquaintanceship that has persisted through the past dozen years. His 

 skillful interpretation of anatomy in functional terms imparted a 

 dynamic and vital significance to the otherwise cold details of insect 

 body structure. As a physiologist by earlier training and primary in- 

 terest, I was especially stimulated by Dr. Snodgrass's deductions con- 

 cerning function and phylogenetic implications from his careful 

 observations. The theme of this contribution represents certain infer- 

 ences from experimental observations of a nonmorphologist about a 

 biological phenomenon, metamorphosis, in which Dr. Snodgrass has 

 long been demonstrably interested. It is therefore a distinct privilege 

 for a physiologist, like myself, to engage in this labor of love — the 

 participation in a volume dedicated to the foremost morphologist of 

 our time. 



THE PHYSIOLOGICAL APPROACH 



Without question science is today witnessing a rapid increase in the 

 mutual participation of relatively unrelated disciplines of research, 

 heretofore considered exclusive by the very nature of their accus- 

 tomed research methods. In the biological sciences such exclusiveness 

 is more often than not based upon the particular conceptual approach 

 and ratiocination processes of the scholars of each of the specific areas 

 involved, from taxonomy to physiology. For reasons particularly 

 apparent to the scholars in such fields, but chiefly because of the un- 

 availability of other techniques or research procedures, students of 



1 The author is deeply appreciative of the conscientious, patient, and under- 

 standing help of Mrs. Elaine S. Rockstein in the preparation of this manuscript. 



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