1885.] 
Strassburger’s Theory of Generation. 
673 
VIII. STRASSBURGER’S THEORY OF 
GENERATION. 
nltej' I STRASSBURGER had added to his former nume- 
•' rous researches on the history of the development 
of organisms a new and important investigation, 
in which he attempts to solve the problem of generation. 
His researches which have been made upon plants, though 
they are to a great extent applicable to all living beings, 
have been published as a separate work,* and are being dis- 
cussed in the “ Naturforscher.” 
From the author’s observations on the process of fecunda- 
tion in phanerogamous plants, there appear three fadts : — 
1. The process of fecundation depends on the conjugation 
of the nucleus of the male sperm-cell on its intro- 
duction into the ovum, with the nucleus of the female 
germ-cell or ovum-cell. 
2. The plasma of the fecundative cells not belonging to 
the nucleus (cytoplasm) takes no part in the process 
of fecundation. 
3. Both sperm-cell and germ-cell are true cell-nuclei. 
As for the efficacy of the cytoplasm in the process of 
fecundation, it serves merely as a vehicle in order to convey 
the sperm-cells to the place of their destination. It plays 
here, therefore, the same part as do the cilia of the sperm- 
atozoids of cryptogamous plants. 
Hence, if we generalise the relations established for 
phanerogamous plants by extending them to all living 
beings, the offspring can inherit the properties of its parents 
solely by the mediation of the cell-nuclei. Therefore the 
specific distinctions of the organism must have their foun- 
dation in the properties of these cell-nuclei. Each cell- 
nucleus contains (as it is already well-known), as its frame- 
work, an anastomising manifold intertwined thread, the 
so-called “ nuclear thread,” consisting of a transparent 
substance, the nucleo-hyaloplasm, in which are imbedded 
numerous small granules, the nucleo-microsomes. 
Between the windings of this nuclear thread there lie the 
nuclear corpuscles (nucleoli), one or more. The entire 
* Neue Untersuchungen ueber den Befruchtungs vorgang bei den Phanero- 
gamen as Grundlage fur eine Theorie der Zeugung. Jena, 1884. 
