480 Biology in America 



Much as we have already learned regarding the structure 

 of the cell, it is but as a drop in the bucket compared with 

 our ignorance of this marvelous mechanism of life. What 

 is the origin of the nucleus? Is it primary and the cytoplasm 

 formed from it, or vice verm. Or yet are both nucleus and 

 cytoplasm, co-ordinate parts of the cell in time as well as in 

 function ? Do such apparently anucleate cells as the bacteria 

 and the blue-green algae contain nuclear material, and if so 

 what is its condition in these cells, and is such a condition 

 primary or derived? If primary, how has a definite nucleus 

 arisen in higher cells? Is the distributed nucleus as we find 

 it in certain Protozoa a step in this direction, or is this in 

 turn a specialized condition derived from the more generalized 

 one in which but a single nucleus occurs within the cell? 

 Similarly how has the green coloring matter of the majority 

 of plants and a few animals been evolved, what is its chemical 

 composition, and by what physico-chemical processes does it 

 utilize the sunlight in building up the complex starches and 

 sugars from carbon-dioxide and water? 



Our existing knowledge of the cell has been obtained mainly 

 from fixed and stained material. Does such material tell us 

 a true story? What of the living protoplasm its physical 

 structure and chemical composition? And what of the won- 

 derful cell products known as ferments, which play so large 

 a role in all processes of life? What is their chemical char- 

 acter, and in what way do they do their remarkable work? 



What are the factors regulating the growth, and determin- 

 ing the size of organisms? What enables them to regenerate 

 lost parts? And why does regeneration in some cases repro- 

 duce the part lost, and in others a wholly different one <? 



In medical biology, great as have been the advances of the 

 past, yet greater still may be the progress of the future. 

 When Christ said to his disciples, "Among them that arc 

 born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the 

 Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of 

 Heaven is greater than he," 1 he clearly referred to the 

 blessings conferred upon men by the coming of that kingdom. 

 While it is scarcely possible to conceive of discoveries of 

 greater value to mankind than those made by Pasteur, never- 

 theless "he that is least in the kingdom (of modern sanita- 

 tion) is greater than he." By the application of the dis- 

 coveries of a Pasteur, Metschnikoff and Koch or Flexner is it 

 chimerical to dream of a future world from plague set free? 

 There is much remaining to be done however and none 

 need complain that the Golden Age of Discovery has vanished, 

 and that the frontier in biology exists no more. The filter- 

 Matthew xi, 11. 



