The works of Francis Maitland Balfour, Volume 2 (of 4) : $b A treatise on comparative embryology: InvertebrataBalfour, Francis M. (Francis Maitland)
Science
The works of Francis Maitland Balfour, Volume 2 (of 4) : $b A treatise on comparative embryology: Invertebrata
Balfour, Francis M. (Francis Maitland)
Embryology; Zoology
According to Fol, the nervous system in the Hyaleacea amongst the
Pteropoda originates in a somewhat different way. A disc-like area
appears in the centre of the velum, which soon becomes nearly divided
into two halves. From each of these there is formed by invagination a
small sack. The axes of invagination of the two sacks meet at an angle
on the surface. The cavities of the sacks become obliterated; the
sacks themselves become detached from the surface, fuse in the middle
line, and come to lie astride of the oesophagus. Fol has detected a
similar process in Limax. The exact origin of the pedal ganglia was
not observed, but Fol is inclined to believe that they develop from
the mesoblast of the foot.
A very different view is held by Bobretzky (No. 242), whose
observations were made by means of sections.
The supra-oesophageal and pedal ganglia are formed according to this
author as independent and ill-defined local thickenings of cells which
are apparently mesoblastic. The two sets of ganglia appear nearly
simultaneously, and later than the rudiments of the auditory and optic
organs.
In the Cephalopoda there seems to be but little doubt, as first
pointed out by Lankester, that the various ganglia originate in what
is apparently mesoblastic tissue.
There is still very much requiring to be made out with reference to
their origin, unless details on this subject are given in Bobretzky's
Russian memoir. It would seem however that each ganglion develops as
an independent differentiation of the mesoblast (unless the optic and
cerebral ganglia are from the first continuous)[112]. The
corresponding ganglia of the two sides become subsequently united and
the various ganglia become connected by their proper commissural
cords. The ganglia are shewn in figures 124, 126, and 127.
[112] Ussow states that they are independent.
In Lamellibranchiata the development of the nervous system has not
been worked out.
The two points which are most striking in the development of the
nervous system of Mollusca are (1) the fact that in the Cephalopoda at
any rate it is developed from tissue apparently mesoblastic; and (2)
the fact that the several ganglia frequently originate quite
independently, and subsequently become connected.
With reference to the first of these points it should be noticed that
the supra-oesophageal and pedal ganglia are at first respectively
connected with the optic and auditory organs, and that these sense
organs are in some cases at any rate developed anteriorly in point of
time to the ganglia. It seems perhaps not impossible that primitively
the ganglia may have been simply differentiations of the walls of the
sense organ, and perhaps their apparent derivation from the mesoblast
is really a derivation from cells which primitively belonged to the
walls of these sense organs. Bobretzky's observations on Fusus fit in
well with this view.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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