14
E . N . W I L L M E R
will be noted that some tissues receive far more attention than others.
In some cases this is the result of chance, some tissues being temporarily
more fashionable than others for reasons that are often outside the
realms of Tissue Culture. In other cases, certain types of tissue and cell
cultures can contribute information that is quite unobtainable by other
means or from other classes of tissue.
In the first volume, the methods of cell, tissue and organ culture are
first scrutinized, and some attempt has been made to assess their
respective merits and applications. Secondly, a series of general topics on
cell behaviour and metabolism are discussed. These are subjects that must
affect the assessment of the value of practically all the subsequent observations on living cells. In these chapters the cells under discussion are—
in general—more or less undifferentiated and treated as fairly uniform
cell populations. The problems of differentiation and the interrelationships between tissues form the third group of topics. Modern methods
of Tissue Culture and in particular of organ culture provide what is
probably by far the most reliable approach to the study of differentiation and to the investigation of how hormones are produced by tissues
and how tissues react to hormones. In fact, further advances in endocrinology and further advances in tissue and organ culture must
inevitably run closely parallel with one another, and the latter are
likely to be the pacemakers. Much the same applies to the study of
vitamins as to hormones and these topics form the subject matter for
the last two chapters in Vol. 1.
In V o l . 2 are gathered together a series of detailed accounts of the
contributions made by culture methods to the elucidation of the
physiology and morphology of a representative selection of the various
special tissues of the body. These chapters illustrate what sort of results
have been obtained from the different tissues in vitro and how these
results can assist in providing pictures of events occurring in the body.
The third volume is devoted more particularly to the applications of
Tissue Culture to other fields. Its uses in pathology, including cancer
research, immunology, radiobiology and virology, and in pharmacology, are discussed, as well as the results that have so far been achieved
by the culture of cells and tissues from other animals than the
vertebrates. Finally there is a section devoted to the culture of plant
cells and tissues, which covers something of the same ground as those
devoted to animal material, and treats topics in both the physiological
and pathological fields.
E . N . W I L L M E R
will be noted that some tissues receive far more attention than others.
In some cases this is the result of chance, some tissues being temporarily
more fashionable than others for reasons that are often outside the
realms of Tissue Culture. In other cases, certain types of tissue and cell
cultures can contribute information that is quite unobtainable by other
means or from other classes of tissue.
In the first volume, the methods of cell, tissue and organ culture are
first scrutinized, and some attempt has been made to assess their
respective merits and applications. Secondly, a series of general topics on
cell behaviour and metabolism are discussed. These are subjects that must
affect the assessment of the value of practically all the subsequent observations on living cells. In these chapters the cells under discussion are—
in general—more or less undifferentiated and treated as fairly uniform
cell populations. The problems of differentiation and the interrelationships between tissues form the third group of topics. Modern methods
of Tissue Culture and in particular of organ culture provide what is
probably by far the most reliable approach to the study of differentiation and to the investigation of how hormones are produced by tissues
and how tissues react to hormones. In fact, further advances in endocrinology and further advances in tissue and organ culture must
inevitably run closely parallel with one another, and the latter are
likely to be the pacemakers. Much the same applies to the study of
vitamins as to hormones and these topics form the subject matter for
the last two chapters in Vol. 1.
In V o l . 2 are gathered together a series of detailed accounts of the
contributions made by culture methods to the elucidation of the
physiology and morphology of a representative selection of the various
special tissues of the body. These chapters illustrate what sort of results
have been obtained from the different tissues in vitro and how these
results can assist in providing pictures of events occurring in the body.
The third volume is devoted more particularly to the applications of
Tissue Culture to other fields. Its uses in pathology, including cancer
research, immunology, radiobiology and virology, and in pharmacology, are discussed, as well as the results that have so far been achieved
by the culture of cells and tissues from other animals than the
vertebrates. Finally there is a section devoted to the culture of plant
cells and tissues, which covers something of the same ground as those
devoted to animal material, and treats topics in both the physiological
and pathological fields.