Abstract
The chick egg is an enticing object for study. Nineteenth-century microscopists accepted the challenge with enthusiasm and exquisite results. They were, however, not the first. Aristotle, Fabricius of Aquapendente, and William Harvey had all immersed themselves in similar activities. Their investigations led them back to the very beginnings of an individual life. Harvey, for example, in the mid-seventeenth century spoke of the primordial heart as the punctam saliens, that is, the first leaping point of life, but years later he recognized blood islands in the area opaca at the periphery of the early embryo as living antecedents to the heart itself. With the advent of the early compound microscope, Marcello Malpighi charted a more exacting course through the early stages of development, which can still be traced easily through his incomparable illustrations. Eighteenth-century successors, Albrecht Von Haller, Lazzaro Spallanzani, and Caspar Friedrich Wolff, added further refinements in observations.
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Notes and References
Aristotle, Generation of Animals (A. L. Peck, trans.), Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. 1943.
Fabricius ab Aquapendente, Hieronymus, 1621, De Formatione Ovi et Pulli, Padua.
Harvey, W.,1651, Exercitationes de generatione animalium, Pulleyn, London; an English translation may be found in Works of William Harvey (R. Willis, trans.), Sydenham Society, London, 1847.
Malpighi, M., 1673, Dissertatio epistolica de formatione pulii in ovo, J. Martyn, London; an English translation may be found in Adelmann, H. B., Marcello Malpighi and the Evolution of Embryology, 5 vols., Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1966.
von Haller, A., 1758, Sur la formation du coeur dans le pulet; sur l’oeil, sur la structure du jaune, etc., 2 vols., M. M. Bousquet, Lausanne.
Spallanzani, L, 1785–1786, Experiences pour servir à l’histoire de la generation des animaux et des plantes, Chirol, G; an English translation may be found in Tracts on the Nature of Animals and Vegetables, William Creech and Ar. Constable, Edinburgh, 1799.
Wolff, C. F., 1759, 1764, Theorie von der Generation, Theoria Generationis in zwo Abhandlungen erklärt un bewiesen, Hendel, Halle; facsimile reprint, Robert Herrlinger (Bernstiel, F. W., ed., Berlin), Georg Olms, Hildesheim, 1966.
Row, S. A., 1981, Matter, Life, and Generation. 18th-Century Embryology and the Haller-Wolff Debate, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, provides a particularly useful discussion of these works.
Wolff (1759,1764) had only two plates, one each for plant and animal development, with a total of 48 separate figures. Fifty-three years later Pander (1817) included 11 professionally executed lithograph plates, which presented 82 figures of chick development.
Ben David, J., 1971, The Scientist’s Role in Society: A Comparative Study, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ
McClelland, C. E., 1980, State, Society, and University in Germany 1700–1914, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Turner, R. S., 1971, The growth of professorial research in Prussia, 1818–1848-Causes and context, Hist. Stud. Phys. Sci. 3: 137–182
Clark, W., 1986, From the medieval “Universitas Scholarium” to the German research university, Ph.D. dissertation, University of California/Los Angeles
Leventhal, R. S., 1986, The emergence of philological discourse in the German states, 1770–1810, Isis 77: 243–260.
Kay, A., 1970, Burdach, Karl Friedrich, DSB 2:594–597 and Risse, G. B., 1971, Döllinger, Ignaz, DSB 4: 146–147
Lenoir, T., 1982, The Strategy of Life. Teleology and Mechanics in Nineteenth Century German Biology, D. Reidel, Dordrecht, Holland, pp. 65–71
Meyer, A. W., 1956, Human Generation: Conclusions of Burdach, Döllinger and von Baer, Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, provides English translations of embryological treatises by Burdach, Döllinger, and von Baer and useful introductions to each treatise.
Burdach, C. E, 1826–1840, Die Physiologie als Erfahrungswissenschaft, 6 vols., Leopold Voss, Leipzig.
von Baer, K. E., 1886, Nachtrichten über Leben und Schriften des Herrn Geheimraths Dr. Karl Ernst von Baer, mitgetheilt von ihm selbst, Friedrich Vieweg und Sohn, Braunschweig. References are made to the English version, Autobiography of Dr. Karl Ernst von Baer, (Oppenheimer, J. M., ed.), 1986, Science History Publications, Canton, Mass. For von Baer’s extensive comments on his anatomical studies under Döllinger and Pander’s work on the chick egg, see Chapter 8.
Pander, C., 1817, Beiträge zur Entwickelungsgeschichte des Hühnchens im Eye, H. L. Brönner, Würzburg. Pander’s dissertation consisted of a Latin version of this work; the dissertation, however, did not contain d’Alton’s engravings. von Baer, 1986, p. 138, describes Pander as arriving in Würzburg in the early summer of 1816. Pander signed the Preface of his Beiträge on Sept. 15, 1817.
Pander, 1817, p. 12.
Charles O’Malley has discussed this issue with respect to Vesalius’s Fabrica. C. D. O’Malley, 1964, Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, 1514–1564, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles; pp. 124–129.
See particularly Pander, 1817, Plate IX, Fig. iii.
Joseph Wilhelm) Eduard d’Alton (1770–1840) became professor of archaeology and history of art in Bonn and wrote Naturgeschichte des Pferdes 2 vols., 1810–1816, and Vergleichende Osteologie, 1820–1828, both of which he illustrated. Because of his osteological work he became a correspondent of Goethe from 1820–1827.
von Baer, 1986, pp. 273–277.
von Baer, 1986, pp. 210–211.
Corner, G., 1944, Ourselves Unborn. An Embryologist’s Essay on Man, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, pp. 9–15.
de Graff, R., 1672, De mulierum organis generationi inservientibus tractatus novus, Hack, Leiden
Roger, J., 1963, Les sciences de la vie dans la pensee Française du XVIIIe Siecle, Armand Colin, Paris, pp. 256–262.
Sarton, G., 1931, The discovery of the mammalian egg and the foundation of modern embryology, Isis 16: 315–330.
Kruta, V., 1971, K. E. von Baer and J. E. Purkyne. An analysis of their relations as reflected in their unpublished letters, Lychnos, pp. 93–120. See also Santon, 1931, pp. 318–319. For comments on and a translation of the second edition of Purkinje’s Symbolae, see Pukinje, J. E., 1830, Contributions to the history of the bird’s egg previous to incubation (Bartelmez, G. W., trans.), in: Essays in Biology. In Honor of Herbert M. Evans, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1943, pp. 51–93.
von Baer, 1986, p. 218.
von Baer, K. E., 1827, On the genesis of the ovum of mammals and of man (O’Malley, C. D., trans.), 1956 with an Introduction by Cohen, I. B., Isis 47:117–157. Emphasis is von Baer’s. See also von Baer (trans.), 1828, Commenter, in: Meyer, 1956, pp. 104–114; quotation appears on p. 114.
The three microscopists were the French biologist J. V. Coste (1833), Purkinje’s student A. Bernhard (1834), and Thomas Wharton Jones (1835). For further details see Kruta, 1971, p. 102.
von Baer, 1828, Commenter, pp. 116–117. In places von Baer is ambiguous about the role of the spermatozoa. In one rhapsodical passage he hypothetically suggests a correspondence between the “spermatic animalcules” and the germinal vesicle. It is likely that von Baer intended sarcasm at this point.
Winsor, M. P., 1976, Starfish, Jellyfish, and the Order of Life, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, pp. 22–24. Cuvier’s basic types were derived from anatomical and physiological considerations. They included Vertebrata, Articulata, Mollusca, and Radiata. Von Baer’s four types were derived to a great extent from his embryological studies.
Raikov, B. E., 1968, Karl Ernst von Baer 1792–1876. Sein Leben und sein Werk, J. Barth, Leipzig, pp. 60–80, and T. Lenoir, 1982, pp. 72–95.
von Baer, K. E., 1834?, Das allgemeine Gesetz der Natur in aller Entwickelung. This is reprinted in von Baer, 1864–1876, Reden gehalten in wissenschaftlichen Versammlungen und kleinere Aufsätze vermischten Inhalts, 3 vols., H. Schmitzdorff, St. Petersburg, 1: 35–74.
von Baer, K. E., 1828–1837, Über Entwickelungsgeschichte der Thiere. Beobachtung und Reflexion, 2 vols., Gebrüdern Borntrager, Königsberg. A convenient, though somewhat stilted, English synopsis of von Baer’s classic may be found in Blaykher, L. Y., 1955, History of Embryology in Russia from the Middle of the Eighteenth to the Middle of the Nineteenth Century, trans. and ed., H. I. Youssef and B. A. Malek, with an Introduction by J. Maienschein, Smithsonian Institution Libraries, 1982, Chapters 14–24.
von Baer, 1986, pp. 232–241, describes at length the misunderstandings with Burdach and unsatisfactory arrangements von Baer had over his contribution to Burdach’s Physiologie. The experience also led to an uneasy relationship between von Baer and Rathke.
von Baer, 1828–1837, Vol. I, p. 38.
In modern terminology we would talk about the successive tucking under of the splanchnopleure and somatopleure. This process would include elements of the endoderm, mesoderm, and ectoderm.
von Baer, 1828–1837, Vol. I, p. 88.
Ibid., p. 140.
Whereas the description of the sequential development of the chick took 140 pages, the Scholia and Corollaries took 124 pages. The remaining 10 pages were devoted to explanations of the two copper plates and corrections.
Oppenheimer, J. M., 1955, Problems, concepts and their history, in: Analysis of Development ( Willier, B. H., Weiss, P., and Hamburger, V., eds.), Saunders, Philadelphia, pp. 1–24.
von Baer, 1828–1837, Vol. I, p. 149.
Ibid., p. 148. Emphasis is von Baer’s.
von Baer often called the vegetative plate the “plastic” plate.
von Baer, 1828–1837, Vol. I, p. 157.
This was clearly the climax of the Scholia. The Fifth and Sixth Scholia are the only ones that have been translated into English. See Huxley, T. (trans.), Fragments relating to philosophical zoology. Selected from the Works of K. E. von Baer, in: Scientific Memoirs, Selected from the Transactions of Foreign Academies of Science, and from Foreign Journals of Natural History (Henfrey, A. and Huxley, T. H., eds.), Taylor and Francis, London, 1853, Vol. 1, pt. II, pp. 186–238.
von Baer, Entwickelungsgeschichte, Vol. I, pp. 208–209.
Lenoir, 1982, pp. 72–95.
These laws have been taken verbatim from Huxley’s translation of the Fifth Scholium, p. 214.
von Baer, 1828–1837, Vol. I, p. 225, presents such a branching taxonomy shortly after enunciating his laws.
Ibid., p. 231.
Ibid., p. 265.
Ibid., pp. 263–264. I have followed, with minor revisions, Huxley’s translation, pp. 237–238.
Rathke, 1818, was a 24-page medical dissertation entitled “De Salamandrarum corporibus adiposis, ovariis, et oviductibus eorumque evolutione,” with two tables (Berlin). Stieda, L., 1888, Rathke: Martin Heinrich R., Allgemeine Deutsche Biogr. 27:352–355, presents a brief but useful sketch of Rathke’s life and career.
Key sections of works on the embryology of the urogenital system can be followed in Adelmann, H., 1966, Marcello Malpighi and the Evolution of Embryology, 5 vols., Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, Vol. 4. For Rathke see pp. 1801–1831,1837–1851, 1931–1943, 1963–1976.
See particularly Rathke, H., 1825a, Kiemen bei Säugethieren, Oken’s Isis, col. 747–749; 1825b, Keimen bei Vögeln, Ibid., pp. 1100–1101; 1825c, Beobachtungen and Betrachtungen über die Entwicklung der Geschlechtswerkzeuge bei den Wirbelthieren, Neueste Schriften. naturforsch. Gesellsch., Danzig, 1 (Heft 4):1–146; 1828a, Bemerkungen zu dem Aufsatze des Herrn Prof. Huschke. Ueber die Kiemenbögen and Kiemengefässe beim bebrüteten Hühnchen, Ibid., 21:8085; 1828b, Ueber das Dasein von Kiemenandeutungen bei menschlichen Embryonen, Ibid., 21:col. 108–109; and 1832, Anatomisch-Philosophische Untersuchungen über den Kiemen-apparat and das Zungenbein der Wirbelthiere, Eduard Frantzen, Riga and Dorpat. All these works are partly reproduced and translated in Adelmann, 1966.
Rathke, H., 1829, Untersuchungen über die Bildung and Entwickelung des Flusskrebses, L. Voss, Leipzig.
For example: “Since the true kidneys sprout and develop in addition to the Wolffian or Oken bodies, we may see a nice confirmation of the statement that the higher animals are only developments of the lower ones.” Rathke, 1825c, quoted in Adelmann, 1966, Vol. IV, p. 1826.
von Baer, 1986, p. 237, makes a revealing comparison between his own and Rathke’s style of research at the time he was writing critically of Burdach’s treatment of his own contribution to the latter’s Physiology: “... Rathke had always been in the habit of having his investigations published as soon as possible, while I, striving for general results which always require much comparative work, was in no hurry….”
See Lenoir, 1982, pp. 96–102, for a detailed and philosophically oriented discussion of Rathke’s discovery of the gill clefts.
See Russell, E. S., 1916, Form and Function, John Murray, London, pp. 151–156, for a discussion of Rathke’s cautious criticisms of the vertebral theory of the skull.
In the development of the idealized vertebrate there exist sequentially three kidneys. (1) The pronephros, or “head kidney,” opens into the body cavity via a segmental or primitive duct. With the exception of fish, the pronephros soon disappears in most vertebrates, but the primitive duct forms the foundation for later genital and urinary passages. (2) The mesonephros, or Wolffian body, consists of segmentally arranged glandular tubules that open at one end into the body cavity and at the other into an efferent common tubule, which eventually joins the primitive duct. The mesonephros functions as an embryonic kidney and remains a prominent structure in adult amphibians. (3) The metanephros, or proper kidney, of amniotes is a caudal outgrowth of the primitive duct and assumes much of the same tubular appearance as the mesonephros. What makes the relationship of these three sets of kidneys complicated is that they rarely appear together in an easily identifiable sequence. Furthermore, as development progresses in certain fish, amphibians, and higher vertebrates, the segmental or primitive duct soon divides longitudinally into an easily recognized duct, known as the mesonephric or Wolffian duct and the thread-like Müllerian duct. In male birds and mammals the anterior portion of the Wolffian duct becomes the vas deferens, which transports semen from the testes to the ureter, and the Müllerian duct degenerates. In female birds the Müllerian duct becomes the oviduct and the anterior portion of the Wolffian duct degenerates. In female birds furthermore, the system becomes asymmetrical as the right Müllerian duct and ovary disappear. In mammals the caudal ends of the two Müllerian ducts become the vagina and uterus. The Wolffian body in amphibians remains the functioning kidney and eventually develops Malphigian bodies and convoluted tubules, which together form the complex filtering system for the blood. True mammalian kidneys develop later as an offshoot from the posterior portion of the segmental, or primitive, duct. As the true kidneys assume their renal functions, the two Wolffian bodies degenerate, and their anterior ends along with the collecting and transverse tubules become appropriated by the testes to form the epididymides and the vas deferens.
See Balfour, F. M., 1881–1882, A Treatise on Comparative Embryology, 2 vols., Macmillan, London, Chapter 24 for a general account of the end-of-the-century understanding of the development of the urogenital system.
Rathke, H., 1818, published his dissertation in Latin, De salamandarum corporibus adiposis, ovariis, et oviductibus eorumque evolutione. Dissertatio inauguralis, Berolini, typis Heusleri viduae. Much of its contents appeared in an expanded form in Ueber die Entstehung und Entwickelung der Geschlechtstheile bei den Urodelen, Neueste Schriften d. naturforsch. Geselisch., Danzig, 1920:1–108. Later important works in this first stage of research include: 1825d, Beobachtungen und Betrachtungen über die Entwicklung der Geschlechtswerkzeuge bei den Wirbelthieren, Ibid.:1–146 and 1832–1833, Abhandlungen zur Bildungs-und EntwickelungsGeschichte des Menschen und der Thiere, F. C. W. Vogel, Leipzig. The latter work consists of a series of monographs, including one of the urogenital system of snakes, lizards, and turtles and one on mammals. Since all of these works are difficult to find, I have followed the translations and discussion of them in Adelmann, 1966, Vol. 4, pp. 1758–2028.
Lenoir, 1982, pp. 95–111.
Rathke, H., 1839, Entwickelungsgeschichte des Natter (Coluber Natrix), Gebrüder Bornträger, Koenigsberg. See also Adelmann, 1966, Vol. 4, pp. 1963–1976.
See letter from Rathke to Müller, Feb. 18, 1829, portions of which are reprinted in Adelmann, 1966, Vol. 4, pp. 1860–1861.
Ibid., p. 1962; Brian Bracegirdle, 1978, A History of Microtechnique, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York, pp. 76–81.
Rathke, 1839, in Adelmann, 1966, Ibid., Vol. 4, p. 1966.
Adelmann, 1966, Vol. 4, p. 2240.
Müller, J. P., 1829, Ueber die Wolffschen Körper bei den Embryonen der Frösche und Kröten, Arch. Anat. Phys., Jhg. 1829, pp. 65–70, and Müller, 1830, Bildungsgeschichte der Genitalien aus anatomischen Untersuchungen an Embryonen des Menschen und der Thiere, Düsseldorf. In 1829 and 1830 Müller made substantial modifications to the sequence envisioned by Rathke. He discovered the pronephros in frogs and toads but equated this erroneously with the Wolffian body of higher vertebrates. More significantly, he recognized that the segmental duct gives rise to two distinct ducts. His conclusions about their fates in birds corresponds to our modern understanding, but for mammals Müller failed to make a clear distinction between their ultimate fates. For an incisive discussion of Müller’s achievements and confusions, see Adelman, 1966, Vol. 4, pp. 1851–1901. For a valuable discussion of the philosophical context of Müller’s 1830 work, see Lenoir, 1982, pp. 103–111.
Adelmann, 1966, Vol. 3, p. 1802.
Schwann, T., 1839, Mikroskopische Untersuchungen über die Uebereinstimmung in der Strucktur und dem Wachsthum der Thiere und Pflanzen, Sander, Berlin, the English translation appeared in 1847 as Microscopical Researches into the Accordance in the Structure and Growth of Animals and Plants (Smith, H., trans.), Sydenham Society, London
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Sloan, P. R., 1986, has exhaustively detailed the importance of Richard Owen’s presentation of German developmental biology for Darwin in “Darwin, vital matter, and transformism of species,” J. Hist. Biol. 19:369–445.
See also P. R. Sloan, Richard Owen’s Hunterian Lectures, 2 May-4 June, 1837, forthcoming
Gould, S. J., 1977, Ontogeny and Phylogeny, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 69–74. Darwin attributed a story about confusing the early embryos of mammals, birds, and reptiles to Louis Agassiz. In later editions he referred instead to von Baer.
Darwin, C., 1859, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, John Murray, London, p. 450 (facsimile reprint by Harvard University Press, 1964 ).
Müller, E, 1964, Für Darwin. Quotation is taken from the English version: Facts and Arguments for Darwin, John Murray, London, 1869, p. 111.
von Baer was one of the most noteworthy holdouts against a material theory of evolution; thus he opposed any pattern suggesting genetic continuity.
For a lucid description of the transformation of von Baer’s laws to Haeckel’s biogenetic law, see Gould, 1977, Chapter 4. Haeckel did not use the expression “das biogenetisches Grundgesetz” in either his Generelle Morphologie or the first edition of Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte (1868), but it appears in the second edition (1870) of the latter work.
Haeckel, E., 1866, Generelle Morphologie der Organismen. Allgemeine Grundzüge der organischen Formen-Wissenschaft, mechanisch begründet durch die von Charles Darwin reformierte Descendenz-Theorie, 2 vols., George Reimer, Berlin, Vol. 2, p. 300. I have followed with minor changes the translation of Russell, E. S., 1916, pp. 253–254. See also Gould, Steven Jay, 1977, p. 81.
Lenoir, 1982, pp. 12–16.
Fritz Müller (1864) also recognized the exceptions to a strict parallel between ontogeny and phylogeny (p. 114).
Oppenheimer, J. M., 1940, The non-specificity of the germ-layers, reprinted in Essays in the History of Embryology and Biology, M.I.T. Press, Cambridge, MA, p. 263.
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Haeckel, E., 1873, On the Calcispongiae, their position in the animal kingdom, and their relation to the theory of descendance, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. S. 4, 11:430. This brief article was simply an English announcement of Haeckel’s two-volume work on Calcispongiae, which appeared the preceding year in German. Analytically is italicized by Haeckel, synthetically is italicized by the author.
Haeckel, E., 1874, Die Gastraea-Theorie, die phylogenetische Classification des Thierreichs und die Homologie der Keimblätter, Jenaische Zeitschr. 8: 1–55.
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Churchill, F.B. (1991). The Rise of Classical Descriptive Embryology. In: Gilbert, S.F. (eds) A Conceptual History of Modern Embryology. Developmental Biology, vol 7. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-6823-0_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-6823-0_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4615-6825-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-4615-6823-0
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive