Novembers, 1919] 



NATURE 



199 



first course of botany dealing with the vegetable 

 kingdom as a whole, and not, as heretofore, merely 

 with flowering plants, was given at Huxley's in- 

 vitation by Thiselton-Dyer. It included the very 

 complete study of lower as well as higher plants. 

 This and the publication of the translation of 

 Sach's "Text-book of Botany," in which Dyer was 

 chiefly concerned, were the starting points of the 

 rapid and remarkable development in botany in 

 the English-speaking universities, which has con- 

 tinued very actively ever since. Profs. Vines and 

 Marshall ^\'ard and others who became leaders in 

 botany were pupils of Dyer at that time. 



About the same date, and as part of the same 

 general movement, the development of "physio- 

 logy " began, so far as this country is con- 

 cerned. This name has been curiously, by 

 sheer chance, assigned to a study which would 

 more properly be called "organology." Originallv 

 physiology meant the study of Nature, but it has 

 been whittled down until now it means essentially 

 the activities of organisms. Burdon Sanderson,, 

 together with Michael Foster and Rutherford, 

 were especially active in the introduction of the 

 laboratory study of physiology in connection with 

 physical measuring apparatus, such as the kymo- 

 graph and other devices already in use in German 

 and French universities. This has resulted during 

 these fifty years in great progress in both the 

 teaching and the understanding of physiology in 

 everv university in Great Britain and .\merica. 



In 1868 our greatest teacher of physiology in 

 London — Prof. Sharpey, cf University College — 

 used to exhibit the mode of record by means of 

 a kymograph by fitting a piece of paper round 

 his tall hat and slowly rotating it on the lecture- 

 table ! There was no physiological laboratory 

 in the place at that time. 



Methods of Research. 



Another great development connected with the 

 new outburst of biology was the improvement 

 both of the microscope itself and of methods of 

 microscopical research. In 1870 all biological 

 workers and teachers became convinced that the 

 long tube and immensely complicated brass-work 

 of English microscopes were superfluous, and that 

 the smaller microscopes of the Continent were 

 better suited to ordinary work. Moreover, 

 the high powers made by Hartnack, of 

 Paris, especially the No. 10 immersion, were 

 found to be more suitable for work upon living 

 and biological material generally than the equi- 

 valent powers of F^lnglish makers. In X'ienna in 

 i86g I worked with Strieker in his laboratory, 

 and learnt from him the method of embedding in 

 waxy materials for the purpose of sect'.on-cutting, 

 of which he was the actual inventor. 1 also 

 studied the methods which he had devised for the 

 investigation of living protoplasm — the out- 

 wandering of white corpuscles in inflammation, 

 movements of the large connective tissue-cells of 

 the cornea, etc. 



In 1870, owing to the connection thus estab- 

 lished. Dr. Emmanuel Klein came to London as 

 NO. 2610, VOL. 104] 



assistant to Burdon .Sanderson, and was after- 

 wards, by his appointment at Bartholomew's Hos- 

 pital, the chief teacher of Continental methods of 

 staining, section-cutting, and refined histology, 

 which at once took firm root in English schools 

 of medicine. Previous to this it was not realised 

 in E!ngland that it was easy to watch the move- 

 ments of the white corpuscles of the blood and 

 other living cells of the animal body. 



Also previous to 1870 a few individuals, such 

 as Lockhart Clark, had in this country used the 

 method of carmine staining for the study of such 

 tissues as the spinal cord. But the method of 

 hardening in various fluids, passing the sections 

 from absolute alcohol to chloroform and ulti- 

 mately to Canada balsam or Damma varnish, and 

 so rendering them transparent, was practically 

 unknown. But since 1870 the methods of stain- 

 ing and section-cutting have enormoi:sly developed 

 in this country. English workers are especially- 

 responsible for the development of the microtome 

 and the methods of producing long ribbons of con- 

 secutive sections, which has had an immense 

 effect on the study of the microscopic structure 

 of all organisms. 



Embtyology. 



Obviously, a line of research the importance of 

 which was greatly accentuated by the Darwinian 

 point of view was embryology. The discovery in 

 1866, by Kowalevsky, of the identity in the early 

 stages of cell arrangement in embryos of the 

 Ascidians and .-Vmphioxus gave an enormous im- 

 pulse to the study of embryology, and raised the 

 hope that secrets of organic relationship in plants 

 and animals might be revealed in other cases. 

 Indeed, Kowalevsky "s great discovery may be 

 considered to rank in biology with that of his 

 fellow-countryman Mendeleeff in chemistry. F'or 

 he showed that the study of cell development 

 could be carried further, and laid the foundation 

 of cellular embryology, which culminated in what 

 is called the ascertainment of "cell-lineage." That 

 remarkably accurate pursuit had its inception in a 

 paper by Whitman published in the Quarterly 

 Journal of Microscopical Science in 1878, and has 

 been largely continued bv Conklin and others in 

 America. 



The actual study of embryology took a new 

 departure in this country under the influence 

 of Frank Balfour, who published papers on the 

 development of the Elasmobranchs, and estab- 

 lished the origin of the notochord and the coelomic 

 cavity in \'ertebrates as identical with that shown 

 in .Amphioxus and -A.scidians by Kowalevsky. My 

 own part in this embryological work was chiefly 

 in regard to the Mollusca, but general conceptions 

 were, I think, facilitated by the introduction bv 

 me of the terms "archenteron," "blastopore" 

 (orifice of invagination by which the two-cell- 

 layered sac, called by Haeckel the gastrula, is 

 formed), " stomodaeum," and " proctodaeum " 

 (the in-pushing of the outer layer relating re- 

 spectively to the mouth and anus). The German 

 terms "Vorderdarm" and " Hinterdarm," refer- 

 ring merely to the anterior and posterior ends 



