Page:History of botany (Sachs; Garnsey).djvu/347

Rh is impossible to conceive of a case of cell-formation more easy to observe, or less reconcilable with Schleiden's theory. It was mentioned in the first book, that Hedwig and Vaucher were acquainted with the remarkable process of the formation of zygospores in the alga-genus Spirogyra; but this as late as Schleiden's time was not regarded as an example of cell-formation, and his view was really a step in advance, since it brought a process, so highly peculiar according to existing ideas, under the general conception of cell-formation.

The systematic elaboration of the theory of cells, founded on careful observation and mature reflection, began with the year 1844. Almost at the same time in this year appeared Nägeli's detailed enquiries into the occurrence of the cell-nucleus and into cell-division, von Mohl's observations on the primordial utricle and its behaviour in the process of cell-division in young tissue, and lastly those of Unger on merismatic cell-formation (cell-division) as a general mode of proceeding in the growth of organs. As these observers were chiefly concerned to test the correctness and general applicability of Schleiden's theory, they necessarily paid special attention to the general occurrence of the cell-nucleus and to its position on the side of the cell-wall, for these were the points most accessible to observation and criticism. The discussion of these observations disclosed a defect in the current phraseology, in which the word cell was commonly understood to mean only the cell-membrane, but sometimes included everything belonging to and contained in the cell; hitherto moreover the protoplasm of the cell had not been sufficiently distinguished from the rest of the cell-contents.

Nägeli and von Mohl arrived simultaneously at a clearer understanding of these points; von Mohl recognised the primordial utricle (1844) as a component part of the cell-contents and not belonging to the cell-wall, and explained the part which it plays in cell-division; in 1846 he arrived at a clear conception of the protoplasm as a peculiar substance distinct from the other contents of the cell and gave it the name it still