SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



173 



BIOLOGICAL JOTTINGS. 

 By Rudolf Beer, F.L.S. 



I. — The Cell. 

 T^WO years ago Professor Max Verworn, writing 

 of modern physiology, said : " The theory 

 of the cell has long since disclosed that the cell 

 is the elementary foundation-stone of the living 

 body, the ' elementary organism' itself. ... If 

 physiology regards it at all as her task to inquire 

 into the phenomena of life, she must seek these 

 phenomena at the spot where they have their 

 origin, at the focus of life-processes, in the cell.'^ 

 These words of one so well qualified to speak as 

 Verworn, are sufficient to show what an important 

 part of biology. Cytology, or the science of the 

 cell, has become. 



Unfortunately we have attempted to run before 

 we could walk, and have, consequently, almost 

 swamped the science with a deluge of theory. We 

 cannot altogether wonder that this should be so. 

 From time immemorial, man has felt a burning 

 curiosity with regard to the nature of life, and 

 when at last he has tracked the phenomenon to the 

 narrow compass of a cell and is brought to a pause 

 by the incapacity of his present means of research, 

 can we be surprised that he should be impatient of 

 delay, and should stretch out his hands beyond 

 the curtain which divides the known from the 

 unknown ? Nothing can be more useful to science 

 than a working hypothesis, but when, by frequent 

 repetition, we forget that we are dealing with 

 a theory and take it as a recognized fact, we 

 fall into one of the most grievous errors that await 

 a man of science. Upon one theory we shall 

 then proceed to build another, and bit by bit, we 

 shall weave a complicated network of dreams, 

 with here and there, perhaps, a distorted fact 

 twisted in until at last the whole baseless fabric of 

 this vision topples over like a house of cards and 

 " leaves not a rack behind," except the bitter 

 knowledge that we have wasted so many valuable 

 years over empty speculations. 



All this will seem very trite, but unfortunately it 

 is too often forgotten, especially in cytology, where 

 too much time and attention is given to quibbles 

 about visionary biophors and idiosomes, which 

 exist only in the minds of their upholders. All 

 that can be said so far with any certainty is that 

 the smallest unit capable of independent life is 

 the cell. But even that very word "cell" is 

 surrounded with confusion due to the many 

 changes of meaning which it has passed through 

 since its introduction into science by Robert Hooke 

 in 1667. At one time it signified a tiny cavity like 

 the cell of a bee's honey-comb; at another it 

 implied the walls of the cavity, together with their 



contents ; and more recently still, it has been used 

 to denote the contents apart from the enclosing 

 walls. It is in this latter sense that I employ the 

 term in the present article. 



It is better perhaps to adopt Professor Sachs' 

 terminology and to speak of the walls and the 

 contents of the cavity together as constituting a 

 cell, whilst the living part of the cell-contents, 

 I'/.;'., the protoplasm (including the nucleus) is 

 termed an "energid." To be precise, one may 

 define an energid as a nucleus together with the 

 protoplasm which it governs. According to this 

 plan, some part of the original meaning still attaches 

 to the word cell, whilst the modern ideas of a 

 living unit are summed up in the name " energid." 



Plain and straightforward as this all seems, 

 there are, however, many things which militate 

 against its entire success. One difficulty which 

 has been raised against Sachs' views is the fact 

 that protoplasm is not a quiet stay-at-home 

 substance which can be nicely packed up around 

 a nucleus and thus without difficulty partitioned 

 off as a unit. It is a mobile substance, wandering 

 in all probability through the organism. We 

 know that in plants there is continuity of proto- 

 plasm from one cell to another (using here the 

 word cell in Sachs' sense), and there is very 

 good reason for thinking that the plasma 

 touches at one moment this nucleus, and is 

 controlled by it, but that slowly it travels 

 away, finding a passage through the delicate inter- 

 communicating channels leading into neighbouring 

 cells, and is thus brought within the range of 

 influence of other nuclei, and so on from nucleus 

 to nucleus throughout the organism. This is not, 

 however, a serious objection to the idea of an 

 energid. By that term we signify a nucleus 

 together with the protoplasm which at any given 

 moment is controlled by it. 



Another question which is intimately bound up 

 with the conception of " energids," is whether 

 there exist organisms or elemental parts of 

 organisms which are destitute of nuclei. Some 

 years ago numerous examples would have been 

 forthcoming to answer this question in the affirma- 

 ti\e. ^\■ith improving means of research, however, 

 these examples have fallen away one after the 

 other, and at the present day it is only in three 

 cases that there is any question at all. These are 

 the red corpuscles of the blood, bacteria and certain 

 members of the lowest class of algae — the Cyano- 

 phyceae. With regard to the first, all that need be 

 said is that physiologists are pretty well agreed 

 that the red corpuscles are to be looked upon 



