1. I N T R O D U C T I O N
5
which by now might have been solved had not the popular appeal
directed research in the way that it did. More recent work has, of
course, been along other lines, again partly determined by fear of a
disease, this time by the fear of poliomyelitis, and it has amply shown
that Tissue Culture had even greater possibilities in several other
directions than that of cancer research.
Soon after the 1914-18 war, Tissue Culture was taken up in earnest
in many countries. Carrel, Ebeling and the Lewises continued actively
in America, Strangeways and his co-workers in England, Fischer in
Denmark, von Mollendorffin Germany, Champyand Ephrussi in France,
Chlopin in Russia and Levi in Italy were all early in the field, and
provided many significant contributions to the subject.
The limitations of the original hanging-drop method, from the biochemical point of view, led to the development in 1923 of the Carrel
flask (see p. 41), in which more tissue and more medium could be used
and so facilitate chemical analyses. Growth stimulation and the problems connected with the provision of an adequate diet for pure strains
of growing cells were, as already indicated, the main interests of Carrel,
Ebeling, Fischer and subsequently of Parker. Others, like Strangeways,
Chlopin, Levi and Champy were on the whole more interested in the
then less popular problems of differentiation and cell behaviour
although it should be noted that one of the earliest and most complete
descriptions of the process of cell division itself was provided by
Strangeways (1922), and it was he who probably inspired that versatile
pathologist from St. Bartholomew's Hospital, R . G. Canti, to produce
some of the most exciting and informative cinematographic films that
have ever been taken of cells migrating and dividing in cultures. These
were not the first films to be taken of cells in culture for Comandon,
Levaditi and Mutermilch took some in France in 1913, but Canti's
films (1928) were certainly a landmark in cell biology. The adaptation
of the cine-camera for use at varying speeds with the microscope is an
interesting example of how advances in one field of learning can quickly
lead to advances in an entirely different field. The time-lapse camera
of 1926 was, by modern standards, a primitive and cumbersome contraption, but it was the forerunner of one of the most powerful tools
now in the hands of the cell biologist.
The Lewises (1914), in their elegant analyses of cell structure, cell
behaviour and differentiation in cultures demonstrated, among other
things, the presence of mitochondria in living cells in tissue culture by
the process of vital-staining with Janus-green B, and they saw these by
dark-field illumination in 1923. But it was the great technical advances
in high-power dark-field microscopy which were made in the early
twenties that allowed Canti (Strangeways and Canti, 1927) to show by
5
which by now might have been solved had not the popular appeal
directed research in the way that it did. More recent work has, of
course, been along other lines, again partly determined by fear of a
disease, this time by the fear of poliomyelitis, and it has amply shown
that Tissue Culture had even greater possibilities in several other
directions than that of cancer research.
Soon after the 1914-18 war, Tissue Culture was taken up in earnest
in many countries. Carrel, Ebeling and the Lewises continued actively
in America, Strangeways and his co-workers in England, Fischer in
Denmark, von Mollendorffin Germany, Champyand Ephrussi in France,
Chlopin in Russia and Levi in Italy were all early in the field, and
provided many significant contributions to the subject.
The limitations of the original hanging-drop method, from the biochemical point of view, led to the development in 1923 of the Carrel
flask (see p. 41), in which more tissue and more medium could be used
and so facilitate chemical analyses. Growth stimulation and the problems connected with the provision of an adequate diet for pure strains
of growing cells were, as already indicated, the main interests of Carrel,
Ebeling, Fischer and subsequently of Parker. Others, like Strangeways,
Chlopin, Levi and Champy were on the whole more interested in the
then less popular problems of differentiation and cell behaviour
although it should be noted that one of the earliest and most complete
descriptions of the process of cell division itself was provided by
Strangeways (1922), and it was he who probably inspired that versatile
pathologist from St. Bartholomew's Hospital, R . G. Canti, to produce
some of the most exciting and informative cinematographic films that
have ever been taken of cells migrating and dividing in cultures. These
were not the first films to be taken of cells in culture for Comandon,
Levaditi and Mutermilch took some in France in 1913, but Canti's
films (1928) were certainly a landmark in cell biology. The adaptation
of the cine-camera for use at varying speeds with the microscope is an
interesting example of how advances in one field of learning can quickly
lead to advances in an entirely different field. The time-lapse camera
of 1926 was, by modern standards, a primitive and cumbersome contraption, but it was the forerunner of one of the most powerful tools
now in the hands of the cell biologist.
The Lewises (1914), in their elegant analyses of cell structure, cell
behaviour and differentiation in cultures demonstrated, among other
things, the presence of mitochondria in living cells in tissue culture by
the process of vital-staining with Janus-green B, and they saw these by
dark-field illumination in 1923. But it was the great technical advances
in high-power dark-field microscopy which were made in the early
twenties that allowed Canti (Strangeways and Canti, 1927) to show by