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
Roux[13] has based his mosaic theory upon experiments upon frogs' eggs.
According to the theory, the first two segmentation spheres contain not
only all the formative material for the right and left halves of the embryo
respectively, but also the differentiating and elaborating forces for
these, so that on the destruction of one cell, the other can give rise only
to one lateral half of the embryo (hemiembryo lateralis). Roux, therefore,
considers that by the first cleavage the nuclear material is broken up into
unlike halves, by which the development of the corresponding cells is
directed diversely, _i.e._, is determined in a specific fashion.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--DIAGRAMS OF THE EGGS OF FROGS, which show how
alteration of the cleavage process changes the mode in which the nuclear
material is distributed. The nuclei indicated by the same numbers have the
same descent in all the diagrams. All the eggs are viewed from the animal
pole. A. Normally developing eggs. B. Eggs developing under compression by
horizontal plates. C. Eggs developing under compression by vertical
plates.]
The error in these representations of Weismann and of Roux has been shown
by varied experiments of my own. The eggs of frogs on the point of cleaving
were flattened to a disc between vertically or horizontally placed
glass-plates. In the first case they were flattened in the dorsoventral
direction, _i.e._, the axis passing through the animal and vegetative pole
was shortened; in the second case an axis at right angles to this was
shortened. In both cases the course of cleavage, and the resulting
distribution of the nuclei in the yolk, was artificially modified.
The diagrams A, B, C (Fig. 3) will make the results plain to the reader. A,
represents the distribution of the nuclei after normal cleavage; B, the
same, when the egg was pressed between horizontally-arranged parallel
glass-plates; C, the same, where the flattening was produced by
vertically-placed parallel glass-plates.[14]
The diagrams show the positions of the segmentation spheres and of the
contained nuclei as seen from the animal pole. In stages where two layers
of cells as a result of division lay one above the other, the cells of the
lower layer are distinguished in the figure by shading. In the three
diagrams the nuclei are numbered so that the reader may know how far they
are removed from the nuclei of the first two segmentation spheres. The
numbers are further exhibited in the following two genealogical trees:
1
------------
/ \
3 4
------ ------
/ \ / \
7 8 9 10
--- --- --- ---
/ \ / \ / \ / \
15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
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