In the nineteenth century protozoology and early cell biology intersected through the nexus of Darwin's theory of evolution. As single-celled organisms, amoebae offered an attractive focus of study for researchers seeking evolutionary relationships between the cells of humans and other animals, and their primitive appearance made them a favourite model for the ancient ancestor of all living things. Their resemblance to human and other metazoan cells made them popular objects of study among morphologists, physiologists, and even those investigating animal behaviour. The amoeba became the exemplar of the new protoplasmic cell concept of mid-century and because its apparent simplicity made it widely generalizable it became a popular subject in a breadth of experimental investigations and theoretical speculations. It was able to do this because ``the amoeba'' denotes not a particular organism, but a general type of behaviour common to the cells of a range of protozoa, simple plants and higher animals. Its status as an exemplary cell also rested upon auxiliary philosophical assumptions about what constitutes a primitive characteristic and the thesis that evolution is a progressive development of order from chaos.
...MoreDescription Focus is on the 19th century.
Article
Reynolds, Andrew;
Hülsmann, Norbert;
(2008)
Ernst Haeckel's Discovery of Magosphaera planula: A Vestige of Metazoan Origins?
(/isis/citation/CBB000931573/)
Article
Lustig, A. J.;
(2000)
Sex, Death, and Evolution in Proto- and Metazoa, 1876-1913
(/isis/citation/CBB000111744/)
Thesis
Schloegel, Judith Johns;
(2006)
Intimate Biology: Herbert Spencer Jennings, Tracy Sonneborn, and the Career of American Protozoan Genetics
(/isis/citation/CBB001561655/)
Article
Reynolds, Andrew;
(2007)
The Theory of the Cell State and the Question of Cell Autonomy in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Biology
(/isis/citation/CBB000740749/)
Article
Ariane Dröscher;
(2017)
Regola o caso speciale? Franz Unger (1800-1870) e la scoperta della divisione cellulare
(/isis/citation/CBB058289759/)
Article
O'Malley, Maureen A.;
Müller-Wille, Staffan;
(2010)
The Cell as Nexus: Connections between the History, Philosophy and Science of Cell Biology
(/isis/citation/CBB001023956/)
Article
Richmond, Marsha L.;
(2000)
T. H. Huxley's Criticism of German Cell Theory: An Epigenetic and Physiological Interpretation of Cell Structure
(/isis/citation/CBB000111748/)
Article
Bechtel, William;
(2010)
The Cell: Locus or Object of Inquiry?
(/isis/citation/CBB001023957/)
Article
Reynolds, Andrew;
(2007)
The Cell's Journey: From Metaphorical to Literal Factory
(/isis/citation/CBB001021848/)
Thesis
Yamashita, Grant Joo;
(2006)
On the Germ-Soma Distinction in Evolutionary Biology: A Historical and Conceptual Approach
(/isis/citation/CBB001560834/)
Book
Groeben, Christiane;
Kaasch, Joachim;
Kaasch, Michael;
(2005)
Stätten biologischer Forschung: Beiträge zur 12. Jahrestagung der DGGTB in Neapel 2003
(/isis/citation/CBB000770191/)
Article
Ghesquier, Danièle;
(2002)
La centrifugation et la cellule: la déconstruction du protoplasme entre 1880 et 1910
(/isis/citation/CBB000770937/)
Article
Vienne, Florence;
(2009)
Vom Samentier zur Samenzelle: Die Neudeutung der Zeugung im 19. Jahrhundert
(/isis/citation/CBB000932099/)
Article
Bruhn, Matthias;
(2011)
Life Lines: An Art History of Biological Research around 1800
(/isis/citation/CBB001221525/)
Article
Reynolds, Andrew;
(2008)
Ernst Haeckel and the Theory of the Cell State: Remarks on the History of a Bio-Political Metaphor
(/isis/citation/CBB000931532/)
Article
Cherlonneix, Laurent;
(2007)
Recherches sur l'auto-initiation de la mort cellulaire à la fin du XIXe siècle
(/isis/citation/CBB000800287/)
Article
Müller-Wille, Staffan;
(2010)
Cell Theory, Specificity, and Reproduction, 1837--1870
(/isis/citation/CBB001023962/)
Chapter
Aldo Fasolo;
Davide Lovisolo;
(2015)
"The Cell in Development and Inheritance", centoventi anni dopo. E.B. Wilson, la teoria cellulare e il tassello mancante: la membrana plasmatica
(/isis/citation/CBB288072174/)
Essay Review
James E. Strick;
(2019)
Metaphors and Other Slippery Creatures
(/isis/citation/CBB684419484/)
Chapter
Hebblethwaite, Kate;
(2007)
Beyond the Visible: Democratic Cells, Unruly Blobs, and the Circle of Life
(/isis/citation/CBB001035835/)
Be the first to comment!