A History of Science — Volume 5

by Henry Smith Williams; Edward Huntington Williams

Every one will recall that this theory, born of the laboratory, made a tremendous commotion in the outside world. Its application to the welfare and progress of humanity gave it supreme interest, and polemics unnumbered were launched in its favor and in its condemnation. Eager search was made throughout the fields of botany and zoology for new evidence pro or con. But the definitive answer came finally from the same field of exploration in which the theory had been originated—the world of the cell—and the Marine Biological Laboratory was the seat of the new series of experiments which demonstrated the untenability of the Weismannian position. Most curious experiments they were, for in effect they consisted of the making of two or more living creatures out of one, in the case of beings so highly organized as the sea-urchins, the little fishlike vertebrate, amphioxus, and even the lower orders of true fishes. Of course the division of one being to form two is perfectly familiar in the case of those lowly, single-celled creatures such as the protozoa and the bacteria, but it seems quite another matter when one thinks of cutting a fish in two and having two complete living fish remaining. Yet this is virtually what the biologists did.

Let me hasten to add that the miraculous feat was not accomplished with an adult fish. On the contrary, it is found necessary to take the subject quite at the beginning of its career, when it consists of an egg-cell in the earliest stages of proliferation. Yet the principle is quite the same, for the adult organism is, after all, nothing more than an aggregation of cells resulting from repeated divisions (growth accompanying) and redivisions of that original egg-cell. Considering its potentialities, the egg-cell, seemingly, is as much entitled to be considered an individual as is the developed organism. Yet it transpires that the biologist has been able so to manipulate a developing egg-cell, after its bisection, that the two halves fall apart, and that each half (now become an independent cell) develops into a complete individual, instead of the half-individual for which it seemed destined. A strange trick, that, to play with an individual Ego, is it not? The traditional hydra with its reanimating heads was nothing to this scientific hydra, which, when bisected bodily, rises up calmly as two whole bodies.

But even this is not the full measure of the achievement, for it has been found that in some cases the experiment may be delayed until the developing egg has made a second bisection, thus reaching the four-cell stage, when four completely formed individuals emerge from the dismembered egg. And in the case of certain medusae, success has attended experiments made at the eight-cell and even at the sixteen-cell stage of development, the creature which had got thus far on its career in single blessedness becoming eight or sixteen individuals at the wave of the enchanted wand—that is to say, the dissecting-needle—of the biologist. All of which savors of conjury, but is really only matter-of-fact biological experiment—experiment, however, of which the implications by no means confine themselves to matters of fact biological. For clearly the fact that the separated egg-cells grow into complete individuals shows that Weismann's theory, according to which one of the cells contained only body plasm, the other only germ plasm, is quite untenable. Thus the theory of the non-transmissibility of acquired characters is deprived of its supposed anatomical support and left quite in the air, to the imminent peril of a school of sociologists who had built thereon new theories of human progress. Also the question of the multiplied personalities clearly extends far beyond the field of the biologist, and must be turned over to the consideration of the psychologist—if, indeed, it does not fall rather within the scope of the moralist.

But though it thus often chances that the biologist, while gazing stoically through his microscope, may discover things in his microcosm that bear very closely upon the practical interests of the most unscientific members of the human family, it would be a mistake to suppose that it is this class of facts that the worker is particularly seeking. The truth is that, as a rule, the pure biologist is engaged in work for the love of it, and nothing is further from his thoughts than the "practical" bearings or remote implications of what he may discover. Indeed, many of his most hotly pursued problems seem utterly divorced from what an outsider would call practical bearings, though, to be sure, one can never tell just what any new path may lead to. Such, for example, is the problem which, next to questions of cell activities, comes in for perhaps as large a share of attention nowadays as any other one biological topic;—namely, the question as to just which of the various orders of invertebrate creatures is the type from which vertebrates were evolved in the past ages—in other words, what invertebrate creature was the direct ancestor of the vertebrates, including man. Clearly it can be of very little practical importance to man of to-day as to just who was his ancestor of several million years ago. But just as clearly the question has interest, and even the layman can understand something of the enthusiasm with which the specialist attacks it.

As yet, it must be admitted, the question is not decisively answered, several rival theories contending for supremacy in the case. One of the most important of these theories had its origin at the Naples laboratory; indeed, Dr. Dohrn himself is its author. This is the view that the type of the invertebrate ancestor is the annelid—a form whose most familiar representative is the earth-worm. The many arguments for and against accepting the credentials of this unaristocratic ancestor cannot be dwelt upon here. But it may be consolatory, in view of the very plebeian character of the earth-worm, to know that various of the annelids of the sea have a much more aristocratic bearing. Thus the filmy and delicately beautiful structures that decorate the pleasant home of the quaint little seahorse in the aquarium—structures having more the appearance of miniature palm-trees than of animals—are really annelids. One can view Dr. Dohrn's theory with a certain added measure of equanimity after he learns this, for the marine annelids are seen, some of them, to be very beautiful creatures, quite fitted to grace their distinguished offspring should they make good their ancestral claims.

These glimpses will suffice, perhaps, to give at least a general idea of the manner of thing which the worker at the marine laboratory is seeking to discover when he interrogates the material that the sea has given him. In regard to the publication of the results of work done at the Naples laboratory, the same liberal spirit prevails that actuates the conduct of the institution from first to last. What the investigator dis* covers is regarded as his own intellectual property, and he is absolutely free, so far as the management of this institution is concerned, to choose his own medium in giving it to the world. He may, and often does, prefer to make his announcements in periodicals or books issued in his own country and having no connection whatever with the Naples laboratory. But, on the other hand, his work being sufficiently important, he may, if he so desire, find a publisher in the institution itself, which issues three different series of important publications, under the editorship of Professor Mayer.

One of these, entitled Mittheilungen aus der Zoologische Station zu Neapel, permits the author to take his choice among four languages—German, English, French, or Italian. It is issued intermittently, as occasion requires. The second set of publications consists of ponderous monographs upon the fauna and flora of the Gulf of Naples. These are beautifully illustrated in color, and sometimes a single volume costs as much as seventeen thousand dollars to issue. Of course only a fraction of that sum is ever recovered through sale of the book. The third publication, called Zoologischen Jahresbericht, is a valuable résumé of biological literature of all languages, keeping the worker at the laboratory in touch with the discoveries of investigators elsewhere.

The latter end is attained further by the library of the institution, which is supplied with all the periodicals of interest to the biologist and with a fine assortment of technical books. The library-room, aside from its printed contents, is of interest because of its appropriate mural decorations, and because of the bronze portrait busts of the two patron saints of the institution, Von Baer and Darwin, which look down inspiringly upon the reader.

All in all, then, it would be hard to find a deficiency in the Stazione Zoologica as an instruement of biological discovery. A long list might be cited of the revelations first brought to light within its walls. And yet, as it seems to me, the greatest value of this institution as an educational factor in science—as a biological lever of progress—does not depend so much upon the tangible revelations of fact that have come out of its laboratories as upon other of its influences. Scientific ideas, like all other forms of human thought, move more or less in shoals. Very rarely does a great discovery emanate from an isolated observer. The man who cannot come in contact with other workers in kindred lines becomes more or less insular, narrow, and unfitted for progress. Nowadays, of course, the free communication between different quarters of the globe takes away somewhat from the insularity of any quarter, and each scientist everywhere knows something of what the others are doing, through wide-spread publications. But this can never altogether take the place of personal contact and the inspirational communication from man to man. Hence it is that a rendezvous, where all the men of a craft go from time to time and meet their fellows from all over the world, has an influence for the advancement of the guild which is enormous and unequivocal, even though difficult of direct demonstration.

This feature, then, it seems to me, gives Dr. Dohrn's laboratory its greatest value as an educational factor, as a moving force in the biological world. It is true that the new-comer there is likely to be struck at first with a sense of isolation, and to wonder at the seeming exclusiveness of the workers, the self-absorption of each and every one. Outside the management, whom he meets necessarily, no one pays the slightest attention to him at first, or seems to be aware of his existence. He is simply assigned to a room or table, told to ask for what he wants, and left to his own devices. As he walks along the hallways he sees tacked on the doors the cards of biologists from all over the world, exposing names with which he has long been familiar. He understands that the bearers of the names are at work within the designated rooms, but no one offers to introduce him to them, and for some time, perhaps, he does not so much as see them, nor would he recognize them if he did. He feels strange and isolated in the midst of this stronghold of his profession.