Skip to main content
Log in

American morphology in the late nineteenth century: The biology department at Johns Hopkins University

  • Published:
Journal of the History of Biology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Dennis M. McCullough, “W. K. Brooks's Role in the History of American Biology,” J. Hist. Biol.2 (1969), 411–438.

    Google Scholar 

  2. The bests sources of information on the early history of Johns Hopkins University are John C. French, A History of the University Founded by Johns Hopkins (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1946); Hugh Hawkins, Pioneer: A History of the Johns Hopkins University, 1874–1889 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1960); R. J. Storr, The Beginnings of Graduate Education in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953); and Laurence R. Veysey, The Emergence of the American University (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965).

    Google Scholar 

  3. For a more extensive treatment of the early development of Johns Hopkins University, see the works cited in note 2. Hawkins' Pioneer is particularly valuable.

  4. “Preliminary Announcement,” Johns Hopkins University, Report of the President (17 January 1876), p. 30.

  5. ; p. 56.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Martin and Huxley had even collaborated on a textbook. Huxley sent Gilman a copy for inspection and, presumably, as a measure of Martin's position in the biological community.

  7. R. P. Cowles, “The Department of Biology, Johns Hopkins University,” (unpublished manuscript, Johns Hopkins University, Eisenhower Library Manuscript Room), p. 15; D. C. Gilman to H. Newell Martin, 14 March 1876, Johns Hopkins University, Eisenhower Library Manuscript Room, Gilman Collection.

  8. H. Newell Martin, “The Study and Teaching of Biology,” Pop. Sci. Mon., 10 (1877), 302–303.

    Google Scholar 

  9. H. Newell Martin, “The Study and Teaching of Biology,” Pop. Sci. Mon., 10 (1877), 300.

    Google Scholar 

  10. President Gilman, after his visit to the European laboratories, was very supportive of the laboratory approach Martin chose to take. Martin's own preference for laboratory studies was undoubtedly the result of his experiences at Cambridge with Michael Foster. In addition, Martin was a notoriously poor lecturer and always uncomfortable in that role.

  11. Martin, “The Study and Teaching of Biology,” p. 303.

  12. , p. 56.

    Google Scholar 

  13. , pp. 308–309.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Brooks was first appointed to Johns Hopkins as one of the twenty graduate fellows. Only when the need for a morphologist in the department was apparent was he asked to become a faculty member.

  15. As a recent Ph.D., Brooks had not developed enough of a reputation to attract graduate students. And the medical orientation of the department drew students who were more interested in medicine than in natural history.

  16. , pp. 308–309.

    Google Scholar 

  17. “Biological Laboratory,” Johns Hopkins University, Report of the President (1878), pp. 16–17. Remsen noted that as of February 1878 physiological research was conducted in the laboratories on the glandular structure of the stomach, the changes in the spinal cord following severance of selected nerve roots, the life history of pathogenic fungi (note the descriptive nature of this work), and nervous factors in the respiratory mechanism of the frog. Research activities in morphology included developmental studies of bony fishes, a study of the embryology of the salamander Amblystoma, research on the embryology and phylogeny of mollusks, and an examination of Haeckel's gastraeatheorie.

  18. “List of Dissertations, 1878–1919,” Johns Hopkins University, Report of the President (1920), pp. 80–83.

  19. Ibid.

  20. The journals were Studies from the Biological Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University first published (1879), edited by Martin and Brooks, and Memoirs from the Biological Laboratory of the Johns Hopkins University first published (1887), edited by Brooks. (In addition, Brooks started the short-lived Scientific Results of the Sessions of the Chesapeake Zoological Laboratory.)

  21. 21. This situation was true only until 1873, when Louis Agassiz died. After that the biology program at Harvard suffered. Harvard was unsuccessful in engaging T. H. Huxley as Agassiz's successor. The situation was exacerbated by John McCrady's failing health. Faced with decreasing enrollments, Harvard dropped the advanced course in zoology in 1877 and divided the introductory course between Walter Faxon and E. L. Mark, both recent Ph.D.'s with little teaching experience. Laboratory work, the main thrust of European programs, was dropped by the zoologists and was not implemented again until 1880. Although there was some laboratory work at the MCZ under Alexander Agassiz's guidance, it was offered on an unofficial basis for fourth-year students in the Lawrence Scientific School in 1880–81, and two years later in the Natural History program that was open to other students. This situation prevented Harvard from offering a quality program that could compete with the one at Johns Hopkins or in Europe. It is not surprising that most American graduate students in biology preferred to study in Europe or to be part of the biology department at Johns Hopkins. Mark, incidentally, obtained his degree at Leipzig, whereas Faxon had spent time in Europe learning microtechnique. Further information is available in E. L. Mark, “Zoology,” in The Development of Harvard University since the Inauguration of President Eliot, ed. Samuel Eliot Morrison (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1930), p. 383.

    Google Scholar 

  22. Kowalewsky's most important work was published in Saint Petersburg in the 1860s as a series of articles: Beiträge zur Anatomie und Entwickelungsgeschichte des Loxosoma neapolitanum (1866), Entwickelungsgeschichte des Amphioxus lanceolatis (1866), Entwickelungsgeschichte der einfachen Ascidien (1866), Beiträge zur Entwickelungsgeschichte der Holothurien (1867), and Embryologische Studien an Wurmen und Arthropoden (1869).

  23. The best coverage of Kowalewsky and the question of the link between the invertebrates and the vertebrates is Roberta Jane Beeson's work, “Bridging the Gap: The Problem of Vertebrate Ancestry, 1859–1875” (Ph.D. diss., Oregon State University, 1978).

  24. Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, 2 vols. (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1872), I, 160.

    Google Scholar 

  25. In the 1870s Haeckel published the English works The Evolution of Man: A Popular Exposition of the Principle Points of Ontogeny and Phylogeny (1874) and The History of Creation: Or, the Development of the Earth and Its Inhabitants by the Action of Natural Causes. A Popular Exposition of Evolution in General and that of Darwin, Goethe and Lamarck in Particular (1876).

  26. Ernst Haeckel, The Evolution of Man: A Popular Exposition of the Principle Points of Human Ontogeny and Phylogeny, 2 vols. (Akron, Ohio: Werner Co., 1876), I, 462–463.

    Google Scholar 

  27. , p. 232.

    Google Scholar 

  28. Carl Gegenbaur, Elements of Comparative Anatomy, trans. F. Jeffrey Bell (London: Macmillan and Co., 1878), p. 63.

    Google Scholar 

  29. , pp. vii-viii.

    Google Scholar 

  30. Beeson, “Bridging the Gap,” p. 363.

  31. This is the position taken in most historical treatments of the nineteenth century, particularly those of E. S. Russell, Form and Function (London: J. Murray, 1916); William Coleman, Biology in the Nineteenth Century: Problems of Form, Function and Transformation (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1971) Jane Oppenheimer, Essays in the History of Embryology and Biology (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1967); Erik Nordenskiold, The History of Biology: A Survey (New York: Tudor Publishing Co., 1935); and Garland Allen, Life Sciences in the Twentieth Century (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1975) and Thomas Hunt Morgan: The Man and His Science (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978).

    Google Scholar 

  32. W. K. Brooks, “The Affinity of the Mollusca and Molluscoida,” Proc. Amer. Assoc. Adv. Sci., 24B (1876), 238–240.

    Google Scholar 

  33. W. K. Brooks, “The Development of the Squid,” in Boston Society of Natural History, Anniversary Memoirs (Boston: published by the society, 1880), p. 17.

  34. Beeson, “Bridging the Gap.”

  35. W. K. Brooks, “Embryology of Salpa,” Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., 18 (1875), 198.

    Google Scholar 

  36. N. J. Berrill, “Salpa,” Sci. Amer., 204 (1961), 150–160, noted that Brooks's study of Salpa, one of the most extensive analyses of a single genus at the time, still represents the best work done on that genus.

    Google Scholar 

  37. Brooks's research on Lucifer was widely cited in various European journals. In particular, articles and reviews in the 1890s in Zoologische Jahrbücher and Zoologische Zentralblatt concerning crustacean larval development referred to the Lucifer studies.

  38. W. K. Brooks, “Report on the Stomatopoda Collected by H.M.S. Challenger During the Years 1873–1876,” Rep. Sci. Results H.M.S. Challenger-Zool., 16 (1880), 1–114. An abstract of the work was also published in Johns Hopkins Univ. Circ. (1886), 83–85.

    Google Scholar 

  39. W. K. Brooks to D. C. Gilman, 8 September 1880, Johns Hopkins University, Eisenhower Library Manuscript Room, Gilman Collection.

  40. His papers were the following: “The Young of the Crustacean Lucifer, a Nauplius,” Amer. Nat., 14 (1880), 806–868; “The Embryology and Metamorphosis of the Sergestidae,” Zool. Anzeiger, 3 (1880), 563–567; “Lucifer: A Study in Morphology,” Proc. Roy. Soc., 32 (1881), 46–48; and “Lucifer: A Study in Morphology,” Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. London, 173 (1886), 57–137.

  41. W. K. Brooks, “The Life History of the Hydromedusae: A Discussion of the Origin of the Medusae and of the Significance of Metagenesis,” Mem. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., 3 (1886), 359–430.

    Google Scholar 

  42. Brooks published the earliest and most complete handbook of marine organisms in the United States, the Handbook of Invertebrate Zoology.

  43. The “Essay on Classification,” originally published in 1857, was republished as Louis Agassiz, Essay on Classification, ed. Edward Lurie (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, Harvard University Press, 1962), p. 84.

    Google Scholar 

  44. , pp. 86–87, and W. K. Brooks, The Law of Heredity. A Study of the Cause of Variation and the Origin of Living Organisms (Baltimore: J. Murray, 1883), p. 308.

    Google Scholar 

  45. Brooks, “The Development of the Squid”, p. 17.

  46. W. K. Brooks, The Foundations of Zoölogy (New York: Macmillan Co., 1899), pp. 140–141.

    Google Scholar 

  47. Brooks, “The Affinity of Mollusca and Molluscoida,” p. 234.

  48. Patrick Geddes, “Morphology,” Encyclopedia Brittanica (9th ed., 1883), XVI, 840.

  49. Carl Gegenbaur, Elements of Comparative Anatomy, trans. F. Jeffrey Bell (London: Macmillan and Co., 1878), p. 36

    Google Scholar 

  50. Arnold Lang, Textbook of Comparative Anatomy, trans.H. M. Bernard and Matilda Bernard (London: Macmillan and Co., 1891). This work was on Brooks's graduate reading list under its German title, Lehrbuch der vergleichenden Anatomie über der werbellosen Thiere (Jena: Fischer, 1884–1894).

    Google Scholar 

  51. E. Ray Lankester, “Notes on the Embryology and Classification of the Animal Kingdom: Comprising a Revision of Speculations Relative to the Origin and Significance of the Germ Layers,” Quart. J. Micr. Sci., 17 (1877) 399–454.

    Google Scholar 

  52. F. M. Balfour, A Treatise on Comparative Embryology, 2 vols. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1880), I, 4–5.

    Google Scholar 

  53. Adam Sedgwick, “On the Origin of Metameric Segmentation and Some Other Morphological Questions,” Quart. J. Micr. Sci., 24 (1884), 43–82.

    Google Scholar 

  54. Claus, Elementary Textbook of Zoology, p. 151.

  55. H. V. Wilson, trans., “Metschnikoff on Germ Layers,” Amer. Nat., 21 (1887), 334–350, 419–433. Wilson's article was a verbatim translation of Metschnikoff's Embryologische Studien an Medusen (1886).

    Google Scholar 

  56. W. A. Herdman, “Report upon the Tunicata Collected during the Voyage of the H.M.S. Challenger during the Years 1873–1876,” in Rep. Sci. Results H.M.S. Challenger — Zool., 27 (1888), 121.

  57. W. K. Brooks, “Speculative Zoology,” Pop. Sci. Mon., 32 (1882), 369.

    Google Scholar 

  58. .

    Google Scholar 

  59. Brooks, The Law of Heredity, p. 309.

  60. W. K. Brooks, “Preliminary Observations upon the Development of the Marine Prosobranchiate Gasteropods,” Johns Hopkins Univ., Stud. Biol. Lab., 1 (1878), 13.

    Google Scholar 

  61. W. K. Brooks, “Development of the American Oyster,” Johns Hopkins Univ., Stud. Biol. Lab., 1 (1880), 60.

    Google Scholar 

  62. W. K. Brooks, “The Development of the Digestive Tract in Molluscs,” Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., 20 (1879), 325.

    Google Scholar 

  63. , pp. 217.

    Google Scholar 

  64. Agassiz established a marine summer laboratory on Penikese, an island near Martha's Vineyard. The school was aimed at offering instruction in natural history to school teachers. Interestingly, Agassiz encouraged both men and women to enroll. The program, although short-lived, was successful. See David Starr Jordan, “Agassiz at Penikese,” Pop. Sci. Mon., (1892); Burt G. Wilder, “Agassiz at Penikese,” Amer. Nat., 33 (1898); and “Penikese Island,” Harper's Weekly, 9 August 1873.

  65. E. G. Conklin papers, “General Zoology Notes, November 6, 1889,” Princeton University, Firestone Library Manuscript Room.

  66. “William Keith Brooks,” J. Exp. Zool., 9 (1910), 14.

  67. The instruction that Brooks offered in microscopy was extremely valuable to students. Prior to 1885 there were no American manuals to guide workers using the microscope. Subsequently biologists could consult C. O. Whitman, Methods of Research in Microscopical Anatomy and Embryology (Boston: S. E. Cassino, 1885).

    Google Scholar 

  68. “William Keith Brooks,” pp. 14–15.

  69. “Biology,” Johns Hopkins Univ. Circ. (1885), p. 95.

  70. Brooks's students felt very kindly toward him. This is particularly evident in the memorial edition of the Journal of Experimental Zoology, 9 (1910), which contains numerous anecdotes about Brooks. Other testimonials come from a variety of letters, notebooks, and posthumous remarks.

  71. Whether the idea for the journal club originated with Brooks and Martin or with President Gilman is uncertain. Veysey, French, and Hawkins all mention that Gilman actively encouraged the faculty to organize such discussion groups and used the “seminary” approach of the German universities as a model.

  72. “Biology,” Johns Hopkins Univ. Circ. (1883), 9.

  73. Winterton Conway Curtis papers, “Journal Club,” University of Missouri, Elmer Ellis Library, Western Historical Manuscirpt Collection.

  74. Brooks, The Foundations of Zoölogy.

  75. “Biological Laboratory,” Johns Hopkins University, Report of the President (1893), pp. 36–37.

  76. E. G. Conklin papers, “General Reading Notes,” Princeton University, Firestone Library, Manuscript Room.

  77. W. K. Brooks, “Course of Reading for Graduate and Special Students in Morphology at the Johns Hopkins University,” Johns Hopkins Univ., Circ. (1890), 37. There is a marked correspondence between Brooks's list and Conklin's notes. Brooks divided his reading list into General Works and Special Works. It included F. M. Balfour, A Treatise on Comparative Embryology; Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species; Ernst Haeckel, Generelle Morphologie; A. R. Wallace, The Geographical Distribution of Animals; August Weismann, Essays on Heredity and Kindred Biological Problems; works of Adam Sedgwick on metameric segmentation; Metschnikoff's studies on germ layers; the Balanoglossus work of Bateson; papers by Brooks, Seliger, and Kowalewsky on tunicates; numerous papers on various groups of Arthropoda; and the later research of Balfour, Dohrn, Hatschek, Hertwig, Huxley, and Lankester on vertebrate ancestry. Certainly a graduate student who had read this literature would be well acquainted with current morphological issues.

  78. The station opened in 1878 at Fort Wool, Virginia. It was later located at Crisfield, Maryland (1879); Beaufort, North Carolina (1880–1882, 1884–1885, 1894–1895, 1898-0000); Hampton, Virginia (1883); Green Turtle Key, Bahamas (1886); Nassau, Bahamas (1887); Woods Hole Massachusetts (1888–1889); Kingston, Jamaica (1891, 1893, 1896); Alice Town, North Bimini, Bahamas (1892); and Port Antonia, Jamaica (1897). A narrative history of the CZL was written by C. D. Seligson, “The Chesapeake Zoological Laboratory, 1878–1906,” (unpublished manuscript, Johns Hopkins University, 1975). Other accounts of the CZL are available in Johns Hopkins University, Report of the President; French, A History of the University; and “William Keith Brooks.”

  79. E. Ray Lankester, “An American Seaside Laboratory,” Nature, 21 (1880), 497–499.

    Google Scholar 

  80. W. K. Brooks to D. C. Gilman, 15 May 1882, Johns Hopkins University, Eisenhower Library Manuscript Room, Gilman Collection.

  81. “Chesapeake Zoological Laboratory,” Johns Hopkins University, Report of the President (1879), p. 32.

  82. “William Keith Brooks,” p. 19.

  83. W. K. Brooks to D. C. Gilman, [n.d.] 1878, Johns Hopkins University, Eisenhower Library Manuscript Room, Gilman Collection.

  84. “Chesapeake Zoological Laboratory,” Johns Hopkins University, Report of the President (1883), p. 81.

  85. “Chesapeake Zoological Laboratory,” Johns Hopkins University, Report of the President (1878), p. 53.

  86. W. K. Brooks to George W. Dobbin, 15 July 1883, Johns Hopkins University, Eisenhower Library Manuscript Room, Gilman Collection.

  87. E. B. Wilson, “The Origin and Significance of the Metamorphosis of Actinotrocha,” Quart. J. Micr. Sci., 21 (1881), 202–218; Thomas Hung Morgan, “A Contribution to the Embryology and Phylogeny of the Pycnogonids,” Johns Hopkins Univ., Stud. Biol. Lab., 5 (1891), 1–76; E. G. Conklin, “The Embryology of Crepidula,” J. Morph., 13 (1897), 1–54; Ross G. Harrison, “The Development of the Median and Paired Fins of Teleosts,” Arch. Mikr. Anat. Ent., 46 (1895), 500–578; and David Hilt Tennent, “A Study of the Life History of Bucephalus haimaenus, a Parasite of the Oyster,” Quart. J. Micr. Sci., 49 (1895), 86.

    Google Scholar 

  88. Much of the credit for the publication of journals from Johns Hopkins must go to President Gilman. See the accounts in Hawkins, Pioneer, and Veysey, The Emergence of the American University.

  89. From the similarity of the content and of the titles, the journal probably was modeled after Michael Foster's journal, Studies from the Physiological Laboratory in the University of Cambridge. Established in 1873, this journal was published specifically to proulgate the research of Cambridge physiology students, one of whom was H. Newell Martin. See Gerald Geison, Michael Foster and the Cambridge School of Physiology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1878).

    Google Scholar 

  90. Founded in 1887, with C. O. Whitman as editor.

  91. E. B. Wilson, “Aims and Methods of Study in Natural History,” Science, 13 (1901), 17.

    Google Scholar 

  92. W. K. Brooks, “Are Herdity and Variation Facts?” advance print from the Seventh International Zoological Congress, 19–24 August 1907, Boston.

  93. Wilson, “Aims and Methods,” p. 17.

  94. E. A. Andrews, “Experimental Embryology”, Amer. Nat., 26 (1892), 367.

    Google Scholar 

  95. I must emphasize that it was the experimental methods of the Entwicklungsmechanik tradition that created the excitement among embryologists.

  96. The other characteristic of the MBL was its work on cell lineage.

  97. E. B. Wilson, “The Embryological Criterion of Homology”, in Biological Lectures Delivered at the Marine Biological Laboratory of Woods Hole, 1894 (Boston: Ginn and Co., 1895), pp. 103–104.

    Google Scholar 

  98. C. O. Whitman, “Some of the Functions and Features of a Biological Station”, in Biological Lectures Delivered at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, 1896–1897 (Boston: Ginn and Co., 1898), p. 240.

    Google Scholar 

  99. Jeffrey Werdinger, “Embryology at Woods Hole: The Emergence of a New American Biology” (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1980).

  100. This characteristic is most clearly illustrated by the work of William Coleman (Biology in the Nineteenth Century) and Garland Allen (Life Sciences in the Twentieth Century).

  101. , p. 9.

    Google Scholar 

  102. Geison, Michael Foster and the Cambridge School, p. 296.

  103. Geison, Michael Foster and the Cambridge School, p. 363.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Benson, K.R. American morphology in the late nineteenth century: The biology department at Johns Hopkins University. J Hist Biol 18, 163–205 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00120109

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00120109

Keywords

Navigation