NOTES AND LITERATURE 

 The Chondriosomes as Bearers of the Hereditary Qualities.— 



Meves, in a paper entitled, "Die Chondriosomen als Trager 

 erblicher Anlagen" 1 presents a new and interesting view in 

 regard to the bearer of the hereditary qualities. Since Hert- 

 wig, '75, reached the conclusion that fertilization consists in 

 the union of male and female pronuclei, the nuclear theory of 

 heredity has been criticized by many able investigators, and the 

 new interpretation which Meves gives at this time indicates that 

 many are still dissatisfied with the all-sufficiency of the theory, 

 and are eagerly seeking and grasping, as it were, the first visible 

 sign of any other substance which may serve to carry the heredi- 

 tary qualities. 



Meves finds in the chick embryo, between the second half of the 

 first and the first half of the fourth day of incubation, by means 

 of special fixing and staining reagents, a large number of inde- 

 pendent threads, fibers, rods or granules. The shape of these 

 structures varies in different cells and at different times in the 

 same cell, although they are all one and the same substance. He 

 concludes that these structures are identical with the "Cytomik- 

 rosomen" of la Valette St. George, the " Mitochondrien ' ' of Benda 

 and the ' ' Chondriokonten " of Meves, and proposes to unite them 

 under the term 1 ' Chondriosomen. " He also believes that the 

 granules of Altmann, except those produced by regents, are iden- 

 tical with the chondriosomes. They have been described by 

 Benda, Meves and others in various tissue cells, plant cells and 

 in sex cells. Benda, '03, suggested that possibly the mitochon- 

 dria might play a role in heredity, and with this suggestion 

 Meves agrees. 



Nageli's idioplasm hypothesis and many other similar theories 

 have been advanced to account for heredity, but these have been 

 criticized on the ground that they lack a material substratum, 

 and that they are purely speculative. Meves believes that the 

 "fantastic structure," as it was called by Sachs, has now be- 

 come a reality in the chondriosomes. While Niigeli supposed 

 the idioplasm to produce different differentiated products by 



190 



