XXIV SCIEXCE PROGRESS. 



The Cell in Devdapiiieiit and Iiilieritaiice. By Edmund B. Wilson, 

 Ph.D. The Macmillan Company. 1896. 



Professor Wilson's work is a clear and vigorous history of a pro- 

 vince of biology which has become far better known and more 

 interesting to the general scientific reader since the publication of 

 Hertwig's Work, Die Zelle niid die Gewehe. And it is perhaps not to 

 be regretted that this new treatise on cellular biology is written from a 

 decidedly Boverian and Weismannistic standpoint. Such a method 

 brings out the cardinal points of the subject in far sharper outline 

 before the general reader, than would be the case with any amount of 

 analytical treatment, though this latter might be better adapted to the 

 requirements of the few. 



The introduction and the chapters dealing with the general char- 

 acters of the cell — cell division — and germ cells, are all excellent, 

 although in the description of the Mitotic Evolution perhaps undue 

 importance is given to the centrosome as a cell organ. The general 

 drift of experience seems rather to show that this structure is more the 

 expression of the operation than the controller, of the intracellular forces. 



The chapter on the conjugation in unicellular organisms is particu- 

 larly good, and is in fact by far the most lucid resiime of the observations 

 made on this complex subject, which is in existence. 



It is only when we come to the chapters dealing with the vexed 

 question of chromatin reduction in the generative cells that the work 

 appears to be in any way open to serious criticism. The subject is at 

 the present time entirely sub judice, and the attempt to treat it from a 

 pronounced Weismannistic standpoint necessarily leads to an inflation 

 of the importance of some observations, and the suppression of that of 

 others, which is decidedly objectionable in our present state of know- 

 ledge. This is particularly apparent in the way the Author brings 

 forward vom Rath's work on Salamander as lending much support to 

 reduction in Weismann's sense, because this work has recently been 

 shown by Meves^ to be quite unsound. 



The Spermatogenesis in Salamander completely corresponds with 

 that described by Moore in Elasmobranchs and with Brauer's interpre- 

 tation of the same phenomena in Ascaris. It is thus apparent that 

 whatever the value of the process described in Copepods by Hacker, 

 may eventually turn out to be, the universality of the " reductionstheil- 

 ung" does not at present hold. The argument as based on the results 

 of vegetable cytology is marred by the fact that the author does not 

 always appear to be clear as to the standpoint of the authors he quotes, 

 and in one such instance the respective facts are actually transposed ; 

 in fact throughout this chapter the author's endeavour to maintain his 

 standpoint, although persistent, strikes us as being rather prejudiced. 



1 Ueber die Entwicklung der Mjinnlichen geschlechtszellen von Salamandra 

 maculosa. Arch.f. Mikr. Anatomie, Bd. 48. 1896. 



