Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 57.djvu/582

572 figure (aster). At the same time clusters of extremely delicate lines appear both in the nucleoplasm and in the body of the cell, named the achromatic figure, which has a spindle-like form with two opposite poles, and stains much more feebly than the chromatic fibers. The loops of the chromatic star then arrange themselves in the equatorial plane of the spindle, and bending round turn their closed ends towards the periphery of the nucleus and the cell.

The next stage marks an important step in the process of division of the nucleus. The two longitudinal portions, into which each looped thread had previously split, now separate from each other, and whilst one part migrates to one pole of the spindle, the other moves to the opposite pole, and the free ends of each loop are directed toward its equator (metakinesis). By this division of the chromatin fibers, and their separation from each other to opposite poles of the spindle, two starlike chromatin figures are produced (dyaster).

Each group of fibers thickens, shortens, becomes surrounded by a membrane, and forms a new or daughter nucleus (dispirem). Two nuclei therefore have arisen within the cell by the division of that which had previously existed, and the expression formulated by Flemming—omnis nucleus e nucleo—is justified. Whilst this stage is in course of being completed, the body of the cell becomes constricted in the equatorial plane of the spindle, and, as the constriction deepens, it separates into two parts, each containing a daughter nucleus, so that two nucleated cells have arisen out of a preëxisting cell.

A repetition of the process in each of these cells leads to the formation of other cells, and, although modifications in details are found in different species of plants and animals, the multiplication of cells in the egg and in the tissues generally on similar lines is now a thoroughly established fact in biological science.

In the study of karyokinesis, importance has been attached to the number of chromosomes in the nucleus of the cell. Flemming had seen in the Salamander twenty-four chromosome fibers, which seems to be a constant number in the cells of epithelium and connective tissues. In other cells, again, especially in the ova of certain animals, the number is smaller, and fourteen, twelve, four and even two only have been described. The theory formulated by Boveri that the number of chromosomes is constant for each species, and that in the karyokinetic figures corresponding numbers are found in homologous cells, seems to be not improbable.

In the preceding description I have incidentally referred to the appearance in the proliferating cell of an achromatic spindle-like figure. Although this was recognized by Fol in 1873, it is only during the last ten or twelve years that attention has been paid to its more minute arrangements and possible signification in cell-division.