The Biological Problem of To-day: Preformation Or Epigenesis?: The Basis of a Theory of Organic Development — John Shaqi
The Biological Problem of To-day: Preformation Or Epigenesis?: The Basis of a Theory of Organic DevelopmentHertwig, Oscar
Science
The Biological Problem of To-day: Preformation Or Epigenesis?: The Basis of a Theory of Organic Development
Hertwig, Oscar
Developmental biology; Embryology; Genetics
Among the most interesting heteromorphoses are the galls, produced upon
young plants when certain insects lay eggs on them, or when plant-lice
irritate their tissues. From these abnormal stimuli there result active
masses of cells which grow into organs of definite form and of complex
structure. The galls, moreover, differ widely, in correspondence with the
specific stimulus which was their initial cause, and with the specific
substance, the stimulation of which resulted in the formation of a gall. By
the action of different insects upon the same plant different galls are
produced, and the galls of different plants may be distinguished
systematically.
Blumenbach has already brought forward the existence of galls as an
argument against preformation, holding them to be structures produced
epigenetically, and, therefore, unrepresented by rudiments in the germ. I,
also, consider them witnesses against Weismann's germplasm. They teach us
that the cells of the plant-body may serve purposes quite different from
those arranged for in the course of development; that cells modify their
form in correspondence with novel conditions, and that they are forced into
forming special structures, not by special determinants in the germ, but by
external stimulants.
Galls exhibit yet another instructive kind of heteromorphosis.
Even the tissue of a leaf, turned into a gall by pathological conditions,
retains the power of producing roots. Beyerinck has shown that galls of
_Salix purpurea_, planted in moist earth, bear rootlets identical with
those of the normal plant. As the roots of all woody plants are able to
bear adventitious buds, De Vries thinks it probable that one could rear a
whole willow-tree from a gall. That would imply that all the inheritable
characters of the willow were contained even in the gall.
Loeb has produced heteromorphoses experimentally upon many lower animals,
among which were _Tubularia_, _Cerianthus_, and _Cione intestinalis_.
In _Tubularia mesembryanthemum_, a hydroid polyp, there are stalk, root,
and polyp-head. If one cut off the head, a new head will be formed in a few
days, this being a case of regeneration. On the other hand, a
heteromorphosis may be produced by modifying the experiment as follows:
Both root and head must be cut from the stem; if the lopped piece of the
stem be stuck in the sand of the aquarium by the end that bore the head,
then the original aboral pole in a few days produces a head; if the lopped
piece of stem be supported horizontally in the water, then each end of it
produces a head.
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