Page:LA2-NSRW-2-0033.jpg

DEVELOPMENT OF ANIMAL LIFE body. This, of course, was opposed to the view that the embryo was preformed. The acceptance of his work was long delayed on account of the opposition of Haller the great physiologist and of others, but in 1812 it began to receive notice after the long period of neglect, and in the course of a few years the truth that Wolff contended for was triumphantly established. This was the first epoch in modern embryology.

The second epoch was created by K. E. von Baer in showing that all the tissues and organs come from cell-layers, or germ-layers. Baer (1792-1876) is regarded as the father of modern embryology. In 1828 he published his great work on the development of animals, in which he showed that the numerous cells, produced by division of the or i ginal cell, become arranged into three layers—an outer, a middle and an inner layer—and that this is true for all animals above the very lowest. These layers are called the germ-layers, and each one gives rise to a particular set of tissues and organs. For example, from the outer germ-layer there comes, in all animals, the nervous system, including the brain, spinal cord, nerves and sense-organs; the outer covering of the body with parts like scales, feathers, hair. The middle layer splits into two sheets and is very complex. It gives rise, in all animals, to muscles, heart, blood-system, connective tissue, including cartilage and bone, etc. The inner layer forms the lining of the alimentary tube, etc. It is a remarkable fact that the organs of the many different kinds of animals are essentially alike in origin. This fact unites them all on a broad plane and is of great meaning in understanding their history. It is called the germ-layer theory. Modern embryology has largely become a study of the origin and history of the germ-layers.

Another epoch of advance is marked by the work of Kowalevsky, who in 1866 broke down by embryological study the rigid line that was supposed to separate invertebrated and vertebrated animals, and thereby brought them closer together. In 1881 Balfour, one of the greatest of modern embryologists, brought together all that was known about the development of animal life, from sponges to the highest animals, and published it in his Comparative Embryology. From that time the advance of knowledge about this subject has been very great, and embryology is looked upon as one of the most important of the biological sciences. It enables us to get at the past history of animals, and throws much fight upon their relationships one with another. All animals have had a history. Development shows what that history has been. There is good reason to believe that the higher animals have

been derived gradually from the simpler ones. It follows that the higher ones had simpler ancestors, who might have lived very far in the past. In the course of their development animals repeat to a certain extent the story of their past, and, therefore, certain traces of ancestral organs make their appearance. Let us take, for example, the chick developing in the hen's egg. This is a bird; nevertheless, gill-clefts that belong to fishes and smack of a water-life, make their appearance in the developing bird and then fade away. The heart is also, at the same time, two-chambered as in the fish, and the blood vessels are arranged in the gill-arches as in the fish. These rudimentary organs are not of use to the young bird for breathing, but their presence means something; they are not there by chance. The best explanation seems to be that they are inherited from the remote ancestors of the birds, which were water-breathers. Many other rudimentary organs arise and disappear, and are explained in a similar manner. It is an astounding fact that the gill-clefts arise in all of the highest animals, without exception, and their presence is taken to indicate that the remote ancestors of all were water-breathers and had use for gills. The rudimentary organs referred to of course disappear long before the animal is hatched or born into the world. These structures give clues to former conditions, and the traces we find are like records left by the hand of time upon the embryo. The reading of this embryological record is like reading the hieroglyphics and inscriptions made by ancient people upon monuments, temples and columns, but the inscriptions on the embryo go farther back into the past. In like manner, the stages of the frog show its history. The tadpole is at the level of a fish, but it undergoes further changes and transforms into an air-breathing animal. Now, since the most complex organs of animals start in a state of simplicity, it follows that, if we take them in their simplest stages and see all the modifications as they are added, we shall be better able to understand them. This is of wide application, and shows why embryology is so important in zoology and also in botany. Observations on development throw more light on animal-life than comes from any other single source.

 Devonshire, Spencer Compton Cavendish, eighth Duke of (long known in English politics as Marquis of Hartington), was born July 23, 1833, and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. He entered Parliament in 1857 as member for North Lancashire, in the Liberal interest, and in April, 1863, was made under-secretary of state for war in Lord Russell's administration. In 1866 he became secretary of war,