130 JL 100 YEARS EXPLORING LIFE, 1888-1988 



and molecular biology of plants run by coordinators from the University of 

 Georgia has filled that role and has attracted great attention for the last few 

 years. In addition, the various ecology programs, such as the marine ecology 

 course, may replace more traditional botanical courses. Recent work on 

 algae and cell biology of plants also continues the interest in botanical 

 research. 



While botany and zoology have been somewhat unequal partners at the 

 MBL, the attention to morphology and physiology has been much more 

 balanced. In the earliest years, morphological work predominated. This 

 meant a concentration on the structure of organisms rather than on how 

 they work in life. Structure could.J)e studied by fixing and staining the 

 organism to determine exactly how it was made and of what parts. Study of 

 function requires devising some way to see inside the living organism, or 

 inventing clever manipulative or experimental ways to gain information 

 about those internal workings. 



When Whitman attracted Jacques Loeb to the MBL, they thereby 

 introduced physiological work at all levels of instruction and investigation 

 into the mainstream of MBL work. Whether he was more determined to 

 include physiology or to enlist Loeb is unclear, but Whitman encouraged 

 both with great enthusiasm. He particularly endorsed Loeb's experimental 

 work on artificial parthenogenesis and on regeneration. Though he did not 

 agree witli all of Loeb's conclusions or udth the popular newspaper pub- 

 licity about "controlling life," he was undoubtedly delighted that Loeb's 

 successes attracted others to similar research and to the MBL. To the MBL's 

 benefit, Loeb inaugurated the chemical study of developing organisms as 

 well as physiological work, and he attracted a host of medical researchers 

 and medically related issues to the lab. Today neurophysiological study, 

 pursued by many people from medical schools as well as from biological 

 programs, is one of the specialties of the MBL. 



Early on, and probably again today, most MBL researchers are mech- 

 anists and materialists: they believe that life structures and processes 

 consist of material and mechanical (including chemical) action. They also 

 generally believe that biologists can explain living structure and function in 

 terms of material, mechanical explanations. This does not, however, imply 

 that they are also all reductionists; they do not all insist that life can be 

 explained in terms of the component parts of the organism. In fact, it may 

 be the interactions of the parts, or some sort of wholism, that explains 

 biological functions. During the years from 1910 through the 1930s, one 

 alternative view of living process was vitalism, which gained attention 

 especially through the writings of former experimental embiyologist Hans 

 Driesch. Though most biologists at tlie MBL were not fully persuaded of the 

 vitalistic insistence that sometliing more tlian mere material and mechanics 



