The commonwealth of cells : $b Some popular essays on human physiologySpurrell, H. G. F. (Herbert George Flaxman)
Science
The commonwealth of cells : $b Some popular essays on human physiology
Spurrell, H. G. F. (Herbert George Flaxman)
Human physiology
[Illustration: DIAGRAM 16.—CELL DIVISION.]
Others manage differently. In them the nucleus simply bursts, and turns
its essential elements, a number—always a constant number—of coarse
threads, adrift. Meanwhile, two centrosomes have moved to opposite ends
of the cell, and there anchored themselves by fibrils; other fibrils
springing from them become attached to the nuclear threads, and when all
is ready pull them apart, equally divided, to their respective ends,
where they re-form into two fresh nuclei. (See Diagram 16.)
Unicellular animals, which are constant in shape and swim instead of
flowing when they want to get anywhere, have at first sight nothing
in common with those which do the latter. From their surfaces spring
fringes of free protoplasmic threads, called cilia, from their fancied
resemblance to eyelashes, which serve as motor organs, and beat the water
like oars. (See Diagram 2.) Waves of movement, as they lash one after
another, all in the same direction, seem to pass over the cell, and it
is propelled through the water; while others, which are situated in the
neighbourhood of the cell’s mouth, stir the water into eddies, and drive
food particles into it.
[Illustration: DIAGRAM 17.—CILIA OF AN EPITHELIAL CELL.]
These cilia are important, as they are adapted for many purposes in
large animals. The cells which line the cavity at the back of the nose,
the tubes of the lungs, and other parts of the body, have a few cilia
on their free surface, and it is in them that the structure of these
organs can best be made out. At the foot of each cilium is a minute
globule, from which a fine fibril passes into the cell, and the fibrils,
collectively forming a leash, are attached to its opposite end. (See
Diagram 17.) It seems highly probable that the globule is a centrosome
giving rise to two fibrils, one attached as described, the other passing
up one side of the cilium, and fast to its apex. The result of this
arrangement is that when the fibrils contract the cilium is bent over
with a jerk to the side up which the fibril runs, and when they relax it
slowly straightens itself. There is, therefore, no fundamental difference
between this and the other mode of progression; both are dependent upon
the centrosome.
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