Biology and Its Makers: With Portraits and Other Illustrations

By William A. Locy

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• Language: English
• Publisher: DigiCat
• Release date: Sep 4, 2022
• ISBN: 8596547248170

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William A. Locy

Biology and Its Makers

With Portraits and Other Illustrations

EAN 8596547248170

DigiCat, 2022

Contact: [e-mail]

Table of Contents

Cover

Titlepage

Text

ILLUSTRATIONS

1. Aristotle , 384–322 B.C. ,

2. Pliny , 23–79 A.D. ,

3. Galen , 131–200,

4. Vesalius , 1514–1565,

5. Anatomical Sketch from Vesalius' Fabrica (1543),

6. The Skeleton from Vesalius' Fabrica ,

7. Initial Letters from the Fabrica ,

8. Fallopius , 1523–1563,

9. Fabricius, Harvey's Teacher , 1537–1619,

10. William Harvey , 1578–1657,

11. Scheme of the Portal Circulation according to Vesalius (1543),

12. Hooke's Microscope (1665),

13. Malpighi , 1628–1694,

14. From Malpighi's Anatomy of the Silkworm (1669),

15. Swammerdam , 1637–1680,

16. From Swammerdam's Biblia Naturæ ,

17. Anatomy of an Insect Dissected and Drawn by Swammerdam ,

18. Leeuwenhoek , 1632–1723,

19. Leeuwenhoek's Microscope ,

20 a . Leeuwenhoek's Mechanism for Examining the Circulation of the Blood ,

20 b . The Capillary Circulation, after Leeuwenhoek ,

21. Plant Cells from Leeuwenhoek's Arcana Naturæ ,

22. Lyonet , 1707–1789,

23. Larva of the Willow Moth, from Lyonet's Monograph (1750),

24. Muscles of the Larva of the Willow Moth, from Lyonet's Monograph ,

25. Central Nervous System and Nerves of the Same Animal ,

26. Dissection of the Head of the Larva of the Willow Moth ,

27. The Brain and Head Nerves of the Same Animal ,

28. Roesel von Rosenhof , 1705–1759,

29. Réaumur , 1683–1757,

30. Nervous System of the Cockchafer, from Straus-Dürckheim's Monograph (1828),

31. Ehrenberg , 1795–1876,8

32. Gesner , 1516–1565,

33. John Ray , 1628–1705,

34. Linnæus at Sixty (1707–1778),

35. Karl Th. von Siebold ,

36. Rudolph Leuckart ,

37. Severinus , 1580–1656,

38. Camper , 1722–1789,

39. John Hunter , 1728–1793,

40. Vicq d'Azyr , 1748–1794,

41. Cuvier as a Young Man , 1769–1829,

42. Cuvier at the Zenith of His Power ,

43. H. Milne-Edwards , 1800–1885,

44. Lacaze-Duthiers , 1821–1901,

45. Lorenzo Oken , 1779–1851,

46. Richard Owen , 1804–1892,

47. J. Fr. Meckel , 1781–1833,

48. Karl Gegenbaur , 1826–1903,

49. Bichat , 1771–1801, 169

50. Von Koelliker , 1817–1905,

51. Rudolph Virchow , 1821–1903,

52. Franz Leydig , 1821–1908 (April),

53. S. Ramon y Cajal ,

54. Albrecht Haller , 1708–1777,

55. Charles Bell , 1774–1842,

56. Johannes Müller , 1801–1858,

57. Ludwig , 1816–1895,

58. Du Bois-Reymond , 1818–1896,

59. Claude Bernard , 1813–1878,

60. Frontispiece of Harvey's Generatione Animalium (1651),

61. Selected Sketches from Malpighi's Works ,

62. Marcello Malpighi , 1628–1694,

63. Plate from Wolff's Theoria Generationis (1759),

64. Charles Bonnet , 1720–1793,

65. Karl Ernst von Baer , 1792–1876,

66. Von Baer at about Seventy Years of Age ,

67. Sketches from Von Baer's Embryological Treatise (1828),

68. A. Kowalevsky , 1840–1901,

69. Francis M. Balfour , 1851–1882,

70. Oskar Hertwig in 1890 ,

71. Wilhelm His , 1831–1904,

72. The Earliest Known Picture of Cells, from Hooke's Micrographia (1665),

73. Sketch from Malpighi's Treatise on the Anatomy of Plants (1670),

74. Theodor Schwann , 1810–1882,

75. M. Schleiden , 1804–1881,

76. The Egg and Early Stages in Its Development (after Gegenbaur) ,

77. An Early Stage in the Development of the Egg of a Rock Limpet (after Conklin) ,

78. Highly Magnified Tissue-Cells from the Skin of a Salamander (after Wilson) ,

79. Diagram of the Chief Steps in Cell-Division (after Parker) ,

80. Diagram of a Cell (modified after Wilson) ,

81. ( A ) Rotation of Protoplasm in Cells of Nitella.

(B) Highly Magnified Cells of a Tradescantia Plant,

Showing Circulation of Protoplasm (after Sedgwick and Wilson),

82. Félix Dujardin , 1801–1860,

83. Purkinje , 1787–1869,

84. Carl Nägeli , 1817–1891,

85. Hugo von Mohl , 1805–1872,

86. Ferdinand Cohn , 1828–1898,

87. Heinrich Anton De Bary , 1831–1888,

88. Max Schultze , 1825–1874,

89. Francesco Redi , 1626–1697,

90. Lazzaro Spallanzani , 1729–1799,

91. Apparatus of Tyndall for Experimenting on Spontaneous Generation ,

92. Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) and His Granddaughter ,

93. Robert Koch, born 1843 ,

94. Sir Joseph Lister, born 1827 ,

95. Gregor Mendel , 1822–1884,

96. Francis Galton, born 1822 ,

97. Charles Lyell , 1797–1875,

98. Professor Owen and the Extinct Fossil Bird of New Zealand ,

99. Louis Agassiz , 1807–1873,

100. E.D. Cope , 1840–1897,

101. O.C. Marsh , 1831–1899,

102. Karl von Zittel , 1839–1904,

103. Transmutations of Paludina (after Neumayer) ,

104. Planorbis Shells from Steinheim (after Hyatt) ,

105. Bones of the Foreleg of a Horse ,

106. Bones of Fossil Ancestors of the Horse ,

107. Representation of the Ancestor of the Horse

Drawn by Charles R. Knight under the Direction of Professor Osborn.

108. Fossil Remains of a Primitive Bird (Archæopteryx) ,

109. Gill-clefts of a Shark Compared with those of the Embryonic Chick and Rabbit ,

110. Jaws of an Embryonic Whale, showing Rudimentary Teeth ,

111. Profile Reconstructions of the Skulls of Living and of Fossil Men ,

112. Lamarck , 1744–1829,

113. Charles Darwin , 1809–1882,

114. August Weismann, born 1834 ,

115. Hugo de Vries ,

116. Buffon , 1707–1788,

117. Erasmus Darwin , 1731–1802,

118. Geoffroy Saint Hilaire , 1772–1844, 416

119. Charles Darwin , 1809–1882,

120. Alfred Russel Wallace, born 1823 ,

121. Thomas Henry Huxley , 1825–1895,

122. Ernst Haeckel, born 1834 ,

123. The Biological Station at Naples ,

PART I

THE SOURCES OF BIOLOGICAL IDEAS EXCEPT THOSE OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION

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CHAPTER I

AN OUTLINE OF THE RISE OF BIOLOGY AND OF THE EPOCHS IN ITS HISTORY

Truth is the Daughter of Time.

The nineteenth century will be for all time memorable for the great extension of the knowledge of organic nature. It was then that the results of the earlier efforts of mankind to interpret the mysteries of nature began to be fruitful; observers of organic nature began to see more deeply into the province of life, and, above all, began to see how to direct their future studies. It was in that century that the use of the microscope made known the similarity in cellular construction of all organized beings; that the substance, protoplasm, began to be recognized as the physical basis of life and the seat of all vital activities; then, most contagious diseases were traced to microscopic organisms, and as a consequence, medicine and surgery were reformed; then the belief in the spontaneous origin of life under present conditions was given up; and it was in that century that the doctrine of organic evolution gained general acceptance. These and other advances less generally known created an atmosphere in which biology—the great life-science—grew rapidly.

In the same period also the remains of ancient life, long since extinct, and for countless ages embedded in the rocks, were brought to light, and their investigation assisted materially in understanding the living forms and in tracing their genealogy.

As a result of these advances, animal organization began to have a different meaning to the more discerning naturalists, those whose discoveries began to influence the trend of thought, and finally, the idea which had been so often previously expressed became a settled conviction, that all the higher forms of life are derived from simpler ones by a gradual process of modification.

Besides great progress in biology, the nineteenth century was remarkable for similar advances in physics and chemistry. Although these subjects purport to deal with inorganic or lifeless nature, they touch biology in an intimate way. The vital processes which take place in all animals and plants have been shown to be physico-chemical, and, as a consequence, one must go to both physics and chemistry in order to understand them. The study of organic chemistry in late years has greatly influenced biology; not only have living products been analyzed, but some of them have already been constructed in the chemical laboratory. The formation of living matter through chemical means is still far from the thought of most chemists, but very complex organic compounds, which were formerly known only as the result of the action of life, have been produced, and the possibilities of further advances in that direction are very alluring. It thus appears that the discoveries in various fields have worked together for a better comprehension of nature.

The Domain of Biology.—The history of the transformation of opinion in reference to living organisms is an interesting part of the story of intellectual development. The central subject that embraces it all is biology. This is one of the fundamental sciences, since it embraces all questions relating to life in its different phases and manifestations. Everything pertaining to the structure, the development, and the evolution of living organisms, as well as to their physiology, belongs to biology. It is now of commanding importance in the world of science, and it is coming more and more to be recognized that it occupies a field of compelling interest not only for medical men and scholars, but for all intelligent people. The discoveries and conquests of biology have wrought such a revolution in thought that they should be known to all persons of liberal culture. In addition to making acquaintance with the discoveries, one ought to learn something about the history of biology; for it is essential to know how it took its rise, in order to understand its present position and the nature of its influence upon expanding ideas regarding the world in which we live.

In its modern sense, biology did not arise until about 1860, when the