BOOK REVIEW 

 Recent Advances in Cytology 1 



It was only yesterday that Virchow's dictum Omnis cellula e 

 cellula crystallized into definite form a series of observations 

 upon the cell. The cell became a measuring rod for a vast un- 

 explored continent and the discoveries made are permanent 

 records of achievement. The cell possesses an organization, all 

 of whose parts cooperate. Cytoplasm, delimiting membrane, 

 nucleus, and plastids together with substances entering, sub- 

 stances leaving, substances synthesized, substances broken 

 down — a series of actions and interactions, nullification of one, 

 retardation of another, acceleration of a third, express in the 

 cell what we call life. Can anyone say which part is more alive 

 than another? Cytoplasm? Cell wall? Plastids? Nucleus? Nucle- 

 olus? Centrosome? Spindle fibers? Chromosomes? Are the chro- 

 mosomes alone the bearers of hereditary qualities? What have 

 been the contributions of the students of cell lineage? Have we 

 forgotten the promorphological properties resident in the cyto- 

 plasm of the egg? How about the forces outside the cell? Have 

 they no effect upon morphological expression? Morphogenetic 

 forces inside the cells, morphogenetic forces outside the cells — 

 cells and tissues and organs mutually influencing and modifying 

 one another. A glorious array of solid achievement in less than a 

 century! 



A new generation has arisen and it has fashioned for itself a 

 new set of values, using little of the old, freeing itself from many 

 of the supposed factual ties with the past. And were great trail- 

 blazers like Flemming and Strasburger, dead only a few years, 

 to return, they would be akin to Rip van Winkle aroused from 

 a long slumber to find that the world had passed them by. The 

 lardmarks that they knew are no longer there — strangers in 

 their own land. The sign posts in Darlington's cytology do not 

 suggest connections with the highways of von Mohl, Naegli, 

 Fol, Buetschli, Hertwig, Strasburger, Flemming, Boveri. Mod- 

 ern cytology begins with the year 1912! 



The foreword to the book is written by J. B. S. Haldane who 



1 Recent Advances in Cytology — Darlington, C. D. P. Blakiston's Sons 

 & Co. Philadelphia, 1932. 



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