Reviews and Records in Anatomy and Physiology. 395 
Physiologically, the phenomena we have thus briefly de- 
scribed, obtain equally in the vegetable kingdom ; for, as re- 
cent discoveries have shown, even in the simplest cellular plants 
there is a conjugation of two kinds of cells, the product of whic 
terminates in a new generation ; and in the other plants, the su- 
perior Cryptogamia, and the Phanerogamia, there are parts which 
in a developmental as well as a morphological point of view, 
correspond to the essential male and female products of animals.* 
Throughout the organized world, therefore, the conditions which 
wait upon the true generative process are the same—the com- 
bination of the representative products of two distinct sexes—an 
these products, whatever may be said of their form, are always 
physiologically the same ;—they are cells or cell- -produets. 
e would make a general statement which embodies a 
great deal of physiology on thissubject: A true generation must 
e regarded as resulting only from the conjugation of two opposite 
sexes, from a sexual process in which the potential representatives 
of two individuals are united for the elimination of one germ. 
The germ power thus produced may be extended by gemmation 
or by fission, but it can be formed only by the act of generation, 
and its play of extension and prolongation by budding or by 
division must always be within a certain cycle, and this cycle is 
recommenced by the act of the new conjugation of the sexes. 
In this discussion, we have satisfactorily reached this point that 
the ovum and the spermatic particle are the potential representa- 
tives of the sexes to which they respectively belong. From their 
union results the condition of fecundation; the grand a 
now is, what is the modus operandi of this fecundating act 
we touch upon debatable ground, and the three authors with 
which we have headed these remarks are the advocates of as 
many dissimilar views. Bischoff’s view, based upon speculative 
probabilities rather than upon observation, is, that contact alone 
of the spermatic particle with the ovum being suflicient for fecun- 
Sahai impregnation consists in a kind of catalysis which has its 
empli fication in chemical conditions as enunciated by Liebig, 
falls very far short of affording the requisite explanation of these 
phenomena, as we hope soon to show. is his field of sxGhabilities 
and possibilities we shall enter upon agai 
Newport’s ait apace upon the or caesl phenomena of this 
subject are far the most complete that we have, and being the 
results of a most ae or observer, they deserve our special 
attention. ‘That his views may be the more clearly understood, 
* wonld refer to a profound] siological memoir by Robin, titled: «O 
its “hee ce as we in te ina ag ‘ke oeenie of vlan mae talieali? tee 
9. 
