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
We reach the same conclusion from consideration of the interesting
experiments made by Driesch and Wilson upon the early stages of
segmentation of the egg. In the cases of an echinoid and of amphioxus (Fig.
4) they succeeded in shaking apart the first two and the first four cells
that arose in division of the egg; and they traced the subsequent
development of these separated segmentation spheres.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--NORMAL AND FRACTIONAL GASTRULÆ AMPHIOXUS.
(_After Wilson._)
A Gastrula from a whole egg; B, C and D, gastrulæ from single cells
artificially separated, (B) from the two-celled stage, (C) from the
four-celled, and (D) from the eight-celled stages of normal development.]
From one of the first two segmentation spheres of an echinoid egg, Driesch
was able to rear successive embryonic stages (_Gastrula_ and _Pluteus_),
which were normal in shape, but one-half the usual size. Wilson's results,
obtained by shaking apart the segmentation spheres, were even more
interesting, as they were performed upon amphioxus, a more highly-organized
animal. He reared gastrulæ and older embryos with notochord and nerve-tube,
which were perfect and normal, except in size. They were one-half,
one-quarter, or one-eighth of the usual size, according as they were reared
from cells isolated from the two, four, or eight-celled stage of the
segmenting egg.
Results which Chabry and I gained by destroying, by puncture, one of the
first two segmentation spheres, assist the present argument. Although
one-half of the mass had been destroyed, Chabry obtained, in the case of an
ascidian, and I obtained, in the common frog, embryos with notochord and
nerve-plate. These developed directly and normally, although, in the case
of the frog, there was a slight defect at the ventral posterior part of the
body, where the arrested protoplasmic mass came to lie.
All these experiments show that the first two (and in some cases the first
four) results of division can assume a quite different bearing as regards
their function in the mechanical building of the embryo, according to
whether they remain bound with each other into a whole or are separated and
develop by themselves. In the former case, each forms only one-half (in
some cases only a fourth) of the whole. In the latter case, each by itself
produces the whole. The half and the whole, then, of the first
cleavage-cells are identical in real nature, and, according to the
circumstances, can develop, now in this way, now in that.
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