Anatomy, Comparative; Embryology, Human; Evolution; Human beings -- Origin
In reality, the term "cell," which existed long before the cell theory
was formulated, is not happily chosen. Schleiden, who first brought it
into scientific use in the sense of the cell theory, gave this name to
the elementary organisms because, when you find them in the dissected
plant, they generally have the appearance of chambers, like the cells
in a bee-hive, with firm walls and a fluid or pulpy content. But some
cells, especially young ones, are entirely without the enveloping
membrane, or stiff wall. Hence we now generally describe the cell as a
living, viscous particle of protoplasm, enclosing a firmer nucleus in
its albuminoid body. There may be an enclosing membrane, as there
actually is in the case of most of the plants; but it may be wholly
lacking, as is the case with most of the animals. There is no membrane
at all in the first stage. The young cells are usually round, but they
vary much in shape later on. Illustrations of this will be found in
the cells of the various parts of the body shown in Figures 1.3 to
1.7.
Hence the essential point in the modern idea of the cell is that it is
made up of two different active constituents--an inner and an outer
part. The smaller and inner part is the nucleus (or caryon or
cytoblastus, Figure 1.1 c and Figure 1.2 k). The outer and larger
part, which encloses the other, is the body of the cell (celleus,
cytos, or cytosoma). The soft living substance of which the two are
composed has a peculiar chemical composition, and belongs to the group
of the albuminoid plasma-substances ("formative matter"), or
protoplasm. The essential and indispensable element of the nucleus is
called nuclein (or caryoplasm); that of the cell body is called
plastin (or cytoplasm). In the most rudimentary cases both substances
seem to be quite simple and homogeneous, without any visible
structure. But, as a rule, when we examine them under a high power of
the microscope, we find a certain structure in the protoplasm. The
chief and most common form of this is the fibrous or net-like "thready
structure" (Frommann) and the frothy "honeycomb structure" (Butschli).
(FIGURE 1.2. Stem-cell of one of the echinoderms (cytula, or "first
segmentation-cell" = fertilised ovum), after Hertwig. k is the nucleus
or caryon.)
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