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Article ID: CBB001510269

Images of Cell Trees, Cell Lines, and Cell Fates: The Legacy of Ernst Haeckel and August Weismann in Stem Cell Research (2014)

Dröscher, Ariane (Author)

History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences
Volume: 36, no. 2
Issue: 2
Pages: 157-186

DOI: 10.1007/s40656-014-0028-8

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Stem cells Cytogenetics Genetics Human genetics 20th century 19th century Haeckel, Ernst Weismann, August

Stem cells did not become a proper research object until the 1960s. Yet the term and the basic mind-set---namely the conception of single undifferentiated cells, be they embryonic or adult, as the basic units responsible for a directed process of development, differentiation and increasing specialisation---were already in place at the end of the nineteenth century and then transmitted on a non-linear path in the form of tropes and diagrams. Ernst Haeckel and August Weismann played a special role in this story. The first coined the term Stammzelle (stem cell), the second was the author of the first cellular stem-tree diagram. Even today, I shall argue, the understanding of stem cells, especially the popular perception, is to a large extent a Haeckelian--Weismannian one. After having demonstrated this, by analysing the terminology, in this essay I will focus on the use of cytogenetic tree diagrams between 1892 and 1925 and on the tacit understanding of stem cells that they transmit.

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