[Blumenbach and others (24/1. 'An Essay on Generation' English translation
page 18; Paget 'Lectures on Surgical Pathology' 1853 volume 1 page 209.) have
insisted that the principle which permits a Hydra, when cut into fragments, to
develop itself into two or more perfect animals, is the same with that which
causes a wound in the higher animals to heal by a cicatrice. Such cases as
that of the Hydra are evidently analogous to the spontaneous division or
fissiparous generation of the lowest animals, and likewise to the budding of
plants. Between these extreme cases and that of a mere cicatrice we have every
gradation. Spallanzani (24/2. 'An Essay on Animal Reproduction' English
translation 1769 page 79.) by cutting off the legs and tail of a Salamander,
got in the course of three months six crops of these members; so that 687
perfect bones were reproduced by one animal during one season. At whatever
point the limb was cut off, the deficient part, and no more, was exactly
reproduced. When a diseased bone has been removed, a new one sometimes
"gradually assumes the regular form, and all the attachments of muscles,
ligaments, etc., become as complete as before." (24/3. Carpenter 'Principles
of Comp. Physiology' 1854 page 479.)
This power of regrowth does not, however, always act perfectly; the reproduced
tail of a lizard differs in the form of the scales from the normal tail: with
certain Orthopterous insects the large hind legs are reproduced of smaller
size (24/4. Charlesworth 'Mag. of Nat. Hist.' volume 1 1837 page 145.): the
white cicatrice which in the higher animals unites the edges of a deep wound
is not formed of perfect skin, for elastic tissue is not produced till long
afterwards. (24/5. Paget 'Lectures on Surgical Pathology' volume 1 page 239.)
"The activity of the nisus formativus," says Blumenbach, "is in an inverse
ratio to the age of the organised body." Its power is also greater with
animals, the lower they stand in the scale of organisation; and animals low in
the scale correspond with the embryos of higher animals belonging to the same
class. Newport's observations (24/6. Quoted by Carpenter 'Comp. Phys.' page
479.) afford a good illustration of this fact, for he found that "myriapods,
whose highest development scarcely carries them beyond the larva of perfect
insects, can regenerate limbs and antennae up to the time of their last
moult;" and so can the larvae of true insects, but, except in one order, not
in the mature insect. Salamanders correspond in development with the tadpoles
or larvae of the tailless Batrachians, and both possess to a large extent the
power of regrowth; but not so the mature tailless Batrachians.
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