Form and Function: A Contribution to the History of Animal MorphologyRussell, E. S. (Edward Stuart)
History
Form and Function: A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology
Russell, E. S. (Edward Stuart)
Anatomy, Comparative -- History; Morphology (Animals) -- History
foundations, and distinguish the fundament, the primordial form, the
type, from the individual developments; they reach thus, following
Nature in a certain measure, the essential structure of the organism,
and demonstrate the laws that manifest themselves during embryogeny" (p.
vi.). The embryologists, influenced in this greatly by von Baer,
gradually felt their way to substituting for the "Archetype" of pure
morphology what one may perhaps best call the _embryological archetype_.
How the transition was made we can best see by following out the course
of discovery in one particular line. We choose for this purpose the
development of the skull, a subject which excited much interest at this
time and upon which much quite fundamental work was done, particularly
by Rathke and Reichert.
Following up his discovery of gill-slits and arches in the embryos of
birds and mammals, Rathke in two papers of 1832[199] and 1833[200] worked
out the detailed homologies of the gill-arches in the higher
Vertebrates. He describes how in the embryo of the Blenny there is a
short, thick arch between the first gill-slit and the mouth. A furrow
appears down the middle of the arch dividing it incompletely into two.
In the anterior halves a cartilaginous rod is developed which is
connected with the skull; these rods become on either side the lower jaw
and "quadrate." In the posterior halves two similar rods are formed
which develop into the hyoid. The hyoid is at first connected with the
skull, but afterwards frees itself and becomes slung to the "quadrate."
From the hinder edge of the hyoid arch grows out the membranous
operculum, in which develop later the opercular bones and branchiostegal
rays. The upper jaw is an independent outgrowth of the serous layer.
The serial homology of the lower jaw and quadrate with the hyoid and
with the true gill-arches was thus established in fish, and Rathke had
little difficulty in demonstrating a similar origin of lower jaw and
hyoid in the embryos of higher Vertebrates. He could even, as we have
noted before, find the homologue of the operculum in a flap which grows
out from the hyoid arch in the embryo of birds.
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