344 



NATURE 



[May 19, 1910 



which his name will for ever be associated. In 1889 

 he was made a foreig^n member of the Royal Society, 

 and two years later was awarded the Copley medal for 

 his services to chemical theory. On the occasion of 

 his seventieth birthday, Nature published an appre- 

 ciation of his labours, in the series of its " Scientific 

 Worthies," accompanied by a portrait (No. xxx., 

 1897). From this account it may be permitted to give 

 the following extract : — 



" Cannizzaro, when compared with such men as 

 Berthelot and certain of the leaders of the German 

 schools of chemistry, or even with some of the younger 

 generation of Italian chemists, cannot be called a 

 voluminous writer. In all, about eighty memoirs 

 have proceeded from his laboratory. It is on the 

 special quality and character of his published work, 

 rather than on its extent, or on the range and variety 

 of its subject-matter, that his fame depends. In this 

 respect he resembles the late August Kekule. The 

 names of both men will for ever be associated in the 

 history of chemistry with the promulgation of 

 generalisations which mark epochs in the develop- 

 ment of chemical science." T. E. T. 



TROY. E. VAN BEN EDEN. 



EDOUARD VAN BEN EDEN, who died on April 

 28, adds another to the already long list of illus- 

 trious zoologists who have left us since last summer. 

 He belongs essentially to the epoch which brought 

 forth Anton Dohrn and Alexander Agassiz, whose 

 loss we have so recently mourned, and, like them, he 

 participated in the triumphs of biological achieve- 

 ment which mark the 'sixties, 'seventies, and 

 'eighties of last century. If Dohrn may be called 

 the founder of marine laboratories, and Agassiz one 

 of the originators of modern oceanic research, 

 van Beneden may surely be styled the father of 

 modern cytology. For it was he who discovered the 

 exact similarity of the male and female nuclei in 

 fertilisation, and the halving of the number of chromo- 

 somes in gametog'enesis. 



Born at Louvain on March 5, 1846, he was the 

 son of that distinguished zoologist Prof. P. J. van 

 Beneden, of the Catholic University of Louvain. He 

 was educated at Louvain in the university, and later 

 he studied in Germany, especially at Wiirzburg under 

 Kolliker. He succeeded the zoologist Lacordaire at 

 Liege, and was put in charge of the course of zoology 

 in the faculty of sciences in 1871, at the age of 

 twenty-five. In 1872 he was appointed professeur 

 extraordinaire, and in 1874 professeur ordinaire. This 

 position he held until his death, and made full use of 

 the opportunities it afforded him of advancing the 

 interests of his favourite science. Though his prin- 

 cipal achievements were in the domain of mammalian 

 embryology and cytology, his work covered a wide 

 field. He was the first to give an accurate account 

 of the structure and life-history of those strange para- 

 sites of the Cephalopoda, the Dicyemida (1876 and 

 1882), and he founded the conception of a group 

 between the Protozoa and the Metazoa, to which he 

 gave the name of Mesozoa, a conception which has 

 largely influenced speculative zoology. In conjunc- 

 tion with his pupil Julin, he carried out some in- 

 teresting researches on the development of the 

 Tunicate, and one of the last of his zoological works 

 was an important memoir on the Anthozoa of the 

 Plankton expedition. He is also the author of re- 

 searches on Gregarines, Crustacea, Limulus, Cetacea, 

 and other groups. 



His work on mammalian embryologfy, to which 

 he was apparently led by his researches on the ovum, 

 chiefly concerns the rabbit and the bat. His first 



NO. 21 16, VOL. 83] 



papers on this subject, "La Maturation de I'Qiuf, la 

 F^condation et les Premieres Phases du Developpe- 

 ment embryonaire des Mammiferes " (1875), and 

 " Recherches sur I'Embryologie des Mammiferes " 

 (1880), were noteworthy for his description of the 

 cleavage and for the comparison he instituted be- 

 tween the fully segmented ovum and the g-astrula. 

 Though these speculative views proved untenable, and 

 were eventually given up by him, they had a con- 

 siderable influence in stimulating interest in the sub- 

 ject, and so leading to further researches. Later 

 (1884) he gave, in conjunction with Julin, the first 

 complete elucidation of the foetal membranes of the 

 rabbit and certain other types, and he was the first 

 to name the pro-amnion and to explain its signifi- 

 cance. He was, further, successful in making out ^ 

 the early stages of bats, and as far back as 1875 he 

 directed attention, we believe for the first time, to the 

 remarkable method of impregnation in these animals. 

 His paper on the development of bats, published in 

 the Anatomischer Anzeiger for 1899, contains the 

 results of many years' observations, and is regarded 

 by embryologists as the most far-reaching of all his 

 mammalian work. 



But although van Beneden's name will always 

 hold a prominent position in the history of embryo- 

 logv, it is by his researches on the minute structure 

 of living matter that he v^ill be chiefly remembered. 

 Of cytology, as this branch of science is now called, 

 he will always be hailed as one of the fathers. He 

 early directed his attention to the subject, and his first 

 important published work, " Recherches sur la Com- 

 position et la Signification de I'CEuf, Memoire 

 couronne de I'Academie royale des Sciences de 

 Belgique," published in 1870, dealt with it. This 

 was followed in 1875 by his memoir, already referred 

 to, on the maturation and fecundation of the ovum of 

 the rabbit, and in 1883 by his greatest work, " Re- 

 cherches sur la Maturation de TCEuf, la Fecondation 

 et la Division cellulaire." Then follows a lull in his 

 activity, caused, no doubt, by the terrible accident 

 which happened to him about this time on the Eiger, 

 and as a result of which he was unconscious for 

 three weeks and incapacitated from work for 

 two years, and it was not until 1887 that he 

 published, in conjunction with A. Neyt, his " Nou- 

 velles Recherches sur la Fecondation et la Division 

 mitosique chez I'Ascaride megalocephale." All his 

 great achievements in cytological research are re- 

 corded in this series of remarkable papers. They 

 prove, beyond all possibility of doubt, the right of 

 Edouard van Beneden to take his place in that select 

 band of great original observers to whom science 

 owes her progress. 



By his use of Ascaris megalocephala as the material 

 of his investigation, he introduced a means of 

 research which, in his own hands and those 

 of his followers, led to the most important results. 

 He w^as the first to show, for the ovum, that the 

 chromatic threads are a portion of the network exist- 

 ing in the nucleus. He laid special stress upon the 

 fact that the two daughter chromosomes were alike 

 to the smallest detail, and he first pointed out that 

 they pass to opposite poles of the spindle. He dis^ 

 covered the corpiiscule centrale in 1876 (first seen, itj 

 is true, by Flemming in 1875), and first demonstrated! 

 its importance in cell division. He was also the- 

 first to show that it is in many cases, if not in all^ 

 a permanent organ of the cell (1885 and 1887). He. 

 also discovered the sphere attractive. Both these, 

 structures later received other names, the former be- 

 ing known as centrosome and the latter as centro- 

 sphere ; but whatever names be applied to them— 

 a matter of no importance — the fact remains that they 



