30
JANE Μ. OPPENHEIMER
work of Sonneborn (1943a, b, 1947, 1951) on the genetics of the killer
effect in Paramecium.
While the work on plastid inheritance may ruive
been equally influential in this particular connection, it would be extremely interesting to try to take measure of the strong influence on
embryology that has emanated from the various disciplines that are now
encompassed in microbiology. It is of course not only in relation to current notions of plasmagenes adopted from or by microbiologists (Ephrussi, 1953) that microbiological concepts have affected embryological
ideas. But while embryology, like all modern biology, benefits from the
metabolic and genetic studies currently being performed by microbiologists, these have a very special relevance for morphogenetic investigation. The experimental material of the microbiologists shares with
that of the embryologists one completely unique feature: namely, that
it consists of cells which are not only single cells, but which are also
whole organisms in their own right. It is inevitable, therefore, that much
that is of value for the one group of investigators becomes highly meaningful to the other.
But it may also be remembered that if microbiology has underlined
for embryology the importance of a concept of plasmagenes which may
prove useful in the further analysis of developmental specificity, embryology may have earlier facilitated the progress of the microbiologists
towards this new direction. Visible particles within the cytoplasm were
of special interest to embryologists from the time they were first made
investigable during the 19th century by the perfection of achromatic
lenses; and when the behavior of these visible inclusions was insufficient
to account for observed morphogenetic phenomena, the ground substance of the cytoplasm was invoked as an organizing agency by many of
the great pioneers of the beginning of the 20th century. Lillie (1909)
explained the inequality of the spindle poles in Nereis on the basis
of the molecular structure of the ground substance, and Boveri, Conklin,
and Harrison were continually attributing vast significance to the ground
substance. Thus during the years when most other biological attention
was concentrated solely on the nucleus, the embryologists continued to
drum on the note that situations exist which demonstrate the importance
of the cytoplasm itself—though not necessarily in the genetic sense—in
controlling the differentiation of the cell.
Interpretations involving cytoplasmic inheritance are, however, not
the only ideas borrowed from microbiology which are now in the course
of becoming incorporated into embryological concepts of specificity. Another not wholly unrelated pattern of ideas is in course of transfer with
respect to immunology, over and above Sonneborn's concern with an
JANE Μ. OPPENHEIMER
work of Sonneborn (1943a, b, 1947, 1951) on the genetics of the killer
effect in Paramecium.
While the work on plastid inheritance may ruive
been equally influential in this particular connection, it would be extremely interesting to try to take measure of the strong influence on
embryology that has emanated from the various disciplines that are now
encompassed in microbiology. It is of course not only in relation to current notions of plasmagenes adopted from or by microbiologists (Ephrussi, 1953) that microbiological concepts have affected embryological
ideas. But while embryology, like all modern biology, benefits from the
metabolic and genetic studies currently being performed by microbiologists, these have a very special relevance for morphogenetic investigation. The experimental material of the microbiologists shares with
that of the embryologists one completely unique feature: namely, that
it consists of cells which are not only single cells, but which are also
whole organisms in their own right. It is inevitable, therefore, that much
that is of value for the one group of investigators becomes highly meaningful to the other.
But it may also be remembered that if microbiology has underlined
for embryology the importance of a concept of plasmagenes which may
prove useful in the further analysis of developmental specificity, embryology may have earlier facilitated the progress of the microbiologists
towards this new direction. Visible particles within the cytoplasm were
of special interest to embryologists from the time they were first made
investigable during the 19th century by the perfection of achromatic
lenses; and when the behavior of these visible inclusions was insufficient
to account for observed morphogenetic phenomena, the ground substance of the cytoplasm was invoked as an organizing agency by many of
the great pioneers of the beginning of the 20th century. Lillie (1909)
explained the inequality of the spindle poles in Nereis on the basis
of the molecular structure of the ground substance, and Boveri, Conklin,
and Harrison were continually attributing vast significance to the ground
substance. Thus during the years when most other biological attention
was concentrated solely on the nucleus, the embryologists continued to
drum on the note that situations exist which demonstrate the importance
of the cytoplasm itself—though not necessarily in the genetic sense—in
controlling the differentiation of the cell.
Interpretations involving cytoplasmic inheritance are, however, not
the only ideas borrowed from microbiology which are now in the course
of becoming incorporated into embryological concepts of specificity. Another not wholly unrelated pattern of ideas is in course of transfer with
respect to immunology, over and above Sonneborn's concern with an