The muscles.—Technical Note.—Take a piece of intestine from a freshly killed toad, wash it thoroughly and place it in a concentrated solution of salicylic acid in 70% alcohol for 24 hours, then gradually heat until about the boiling-point, when the muscles will fall to pieces. Transfer the preparation to a watch-crystal and tease small bits of isolated muscle with dissecting-needles. Place some of the teased muscle-fibres on a slide, cover with cover-glass, and add a drop of the methyl-green acetic acid.
Note the small spindle-shaped muscle-fibres. Each one of these fibres is a cell possessing all of the structures common to cells, namely, cell-wall, nucleus, etc.
Make a drawing of a few isolated fibres of muscle.
From this study of some of the tissues in a toad it will be noted that in the first case we had in the blood separate cells which moved about freely in the plasma. In the second case, that of the epidermis, the cells are fixed edge to edge, thus forming a thin tissue; while in the third and fourth cases, that of the liver and muscle, the cells are not only placed edge to edge, but aggregated into vast masses or bundles, in one case to form the liver and in the other case a muscle. The entire body of the toad is built up of a colony of simple units (cells) combined in various forms to make all the various tissues and organs.
[CHAPTER IX]
THE MANY-CELLED ANIMAL BODY.—DIFFERENTIATION OF THE CELL
The many-celled animal body.—In the study of certain of the tissues and organs of the toad we have learned that the body of this animal is composed of many cells, thousands and thousands of these microscopic structural units being combined to form the whole toad. This many-celled or multicellular condition of the body is true of all the animals except the simplest, the unicellular Protozoa. Corals, starfishes, worms, clams, crabs, insects, fishes, frogs, reptiles, birds, and mammals, all the various kinds of animals in which the body is composed of organs and tissues, agree in the multicellular character of the body, and may be grouped together and called the many-celled animals in contrast to the one-celled animals. This division is one which is recognized by many systematic zoologists as being more truly primary or fundamental than the division of animals into Vertebrates and Invertebrates. The one-celled animals are called Protozoa, and the many-celled animals Metazoa.
Differentiation of the cell.—It is apparent at first glance that the cells which compose the body of a many-celled animal are not like the simple primitive cell which makes up the body of the Amœba, nor are they like the more complexly arranged cell of the Paramœcium. Nor are they all like each other. The cells in the toad's blood are of two kinds, the white blood-cells, which are very like the body of Amœba, and the elliptical disk-like red blood-cells. The cells composing the muscles are, moreover, like neither kind of blood-cells, and the cells of which the liver is composed are not like the cells of the muscles. That is, there are many different kinds of cells in the body of a many-celled animal. While the single cell which composes the whole body of the Amœba is able to do all the things necessary to maintain life, the various cells in the body of a complex animal are differentiated or specialized, certain cells devoting themselves to a certain function or special work, and others to other special functions. For example, the cells which compose the organs of the nervous system, the brain, ganglia, and nerves, devote themselves almost exclusively to the function of sensation, and they are especially modified for this purpose. The highly specialized nerve-cells resemble very little the primitive generalized body-cell of Amœba. The muscle-cells of the complex animal body have developed to a high degree that power of contraction which is possessed, though in but slight degree, by Amœba. These muscle-cells have for their special function this one of contraction, and massed together in great numbers they form the strongly contractile muscular tissue and muscles of the body on which the animal's power of motion depends. The cells which line certain parts of the alimentary canal are the ones on which the function of digestion chiefly rests. And so we might continue our survey of the whole complex body. The point of it all is that the thousands of cells which compose the many-celled animal body are differentiated and specialized; that is, have become changed or modified from the generalized primitive amœboid condition, so that each kind of cell is devoted to some special work or function and has a special structural character fitting it for its special function. In the Protozoan body the single cell can perform and does perform all the functions or processes necessary to the life of the animal. In the Metazoan body each cell performs, in co-operation with many other similar cells, some one special function or process. The total work of all the cells is the living of the animal.