Fig. 72—Gastrula of the placental mammal (epigastrula from the rabbit), longitudinal section through the axis. e ectodermic cells (sixty-four, lighter and smaller), i entodermic cells (thirty-two, darker and larger), d central entodermic cell, filling the primitive gut-cavity, o peripheral entodermic cell, stopping up the opening of the primitive mouth (yelk-stopper in the Rusconian anus).
The numbers of careful studies of animal gastrulation that have been made in the last few decades have completely established the views I have expounded, and which I first advanced in the years 1872–76. For a time they were greatly disputed by many embryologists. Some said that the original embryonic form of the metazoa was not the gastrula, but the “planula”—a double-walled vesicle with closed cavity and without mouth-aperture; the latter was supposed to pierce through gradually. It was afterwards shown that this planula (found in several sponges, etc.) was a later evolution from the gastrula.
Fig. 73—Gastrula of the rabbit. A as a solid, spherical cluster of cells, B changing into the embryonic vesicle, bp primitive mouth, ep ectoderm, hy entoderm.
It was also shown that what is called delamination—the rise of the two primary germinal layers by the folding of the surface of the blastoderm (for instance, in the Geryonidæ and other medusæ)—was a secondary formation, due to cenogenetic variations from the original invagination of the blastula. The same may be said of what is called “immigration,” in which certain cells or groups of cells are detached from the simple layer of the blastoderm, and travel into the interior of the blastula; they attach themselves to the inner wall of the blastula, and form a second internal epithelial layer—that is to say, the entoderm. In these and many other controversies of modern embryology the first requisite for clear and natural explanation is a careful and discriminative distinction between palingenetic (hereditary) and cenogenetic (adaptive) processes. If this is properly attended to, we find evidence everywhere of the biogenetic law.
Chapter X.
THE CŒLOM THEORY
The two “primary germinal layers” which the gastræa theory has shown to be the first foundation in the construction of the body are found in this simplest form throughout life only in animals of the lowest grade—in the gastræads, olynthus (the stem-form of the sponges), hydra, and similar very simple animals. In all the other animals new strata of cells are formed subsequently between these two primary body-layers, and these are generally comprehended under the title of the middle layer, or mesoderm. As a rule, the various products of this middle layer afterwards constitute the great bulk of the animal frame, while the original entoderm, or internal germinal layer, is restricted to the clothing of the alimentary canal and its glandular appendages; and, on the other hand, the ectoderm, or external germinal layer, furnishes the outer clothing of the body, the skin and nervous system.
In some large groups of the lower animals, such as the sponges, corals, and flat-worms, the middle germinal layer remains a single connected mass, and most of the body is developed from it; these have been called the three-layered metazoa, in opposition to the two-layered animals described. Like the two-layered animals, they have no body-cavity—that is to say, no cavity distinct from the alimentary system. On the other hand, all the higher animals have this real body-cavity (cœloma), and so are called cœlomaria. In all these we can distinguish four secondary germinal layers, which develop from the two primary layers. To the same class belong all true vermalia (excepting the platodes), and also the higher typical animal stems that have been evolved from them—molluscs, echinoderms, articulates, tunicates, and vertebrates.