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Darwin and the physiologists, or the medusa and modern cardiology

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References

  1. M. S. Pembrey, “Physiology” (Chapter VII) in Evolution in the Light of Modern Knowledge, (London, 1925), 263. Pembrey claimed nevertheless that “the effects can be traced clearly.”

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  6. G. J. Romanes, “Permanent Variation of Colour on Fish,” Nature8 (1873), 101. See also E. Romanes, Life and Letters, pp. 12ff.

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  7. “Whether George Romanes first obtained inspiration from Foster for his investigations on Medusae is less certain. The subject seems to have suggested itself to him whilst convalescing from typhoid at Nigg on the Cromarty Firth, where his family had a summer residence, and where the opportunities for such observations were considerable” E. A. Sharpey-Schafer, History of the Physiological Society, p. 25n.

  8. G. J. Romanes, Jelly-fish Star-fish, and Sea-urchins: Being a Research on Primitive Nervous Systems (London, 1885), p. 13.

  9. G. J. Romanes, “Preliminary Observations on the Locomotor System of Medusae”, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. Lond., 166 (1876), 269–271. For previous work on jellyfish, see the above paper, and G. J. Romanes, “Concluding Observations on the Locomotor System of Medusae,” Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. Lond. 171 (1880), 198–202, and Jelly-fish, pp. 12–22. By the time the last-named was published (1885), a certain amount of reliable work done simultaneously with that of Romanes had been published, notably by the Hertwigs. For a more general survey extending back to the period under consideration, see T. H. Bullock and G. A. Horridge, Structure and Function in the Nervous Systems of Invertebrates (London, 1965), I, 459–534. For histological difficulties, see ibid, 466. The reader is referred to this work in regard to substantive questions on the nervous system of the jellyfish.

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  11. “Some Concepts of Nerve Structure and Function in Great Britain, 1875–1885: Background to Sir Charles Sherrington and the Synapse Concept,” Medical History, 14 (1970), 154–165.

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  13. G. J. Romanes, Phil. Trans.166 (1876), 272–279.

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  14. “Every Medusa, when its centres of spontaneity have been removed, responds to a single stimulation by once performing that action which it would have performed in response to that stimulation had its centres of spontaneity still been intact” (Phil. Trans. 166 [1876], 281, 282).

  15. Though it could not easily be made to contract tetanically. See below.

  16. Phil. Trans. 166 (1876), 288–290. Very occasionally, initial blockage of contractile waves could be overcome (p. 294).

  17. E. Romanes, Life and Letters, p. 37.

  18. Phil. Trans. 166 (1876), 291–293.

  19. For nerve fibers and blocks in tissue bridges, see G. A. Horridge, “An Action Potential from the Motor Nerves of the Jellyfish Aurellia aurita Lamarck,” Nature171 (Feb. 28, 1953), 400; and T. H. Bullock, and G. A. Horridge, Nervous Systems of Invertebrates I, 494.

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  20. For Romanes on the definition of nerve, see “Further Observations on the Locomotor System of Medusae,” Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. Lond. 167 (1877), 692, 696–697, 697n; see also Jelly-fish pp. 23–25.

  21. “I have hitherto failed to detect any structural modifications of the tissue in the regions occupied by these supposed lines of discharge” (Phil. Trans. 166 [1876], 293).

  22. H. Spencer, The Principles of Psychology, 2nd ed. (London, 1870) I, 511–521. For a somewhat later treatment of the same problem from an embryological point of view, see F. M. Balfour's address to the Department of Anatomy and Physiology of the British Association. Rep. Brit. Assn. Advanc. Sci. (1880), pp. 636–644, esp. pp. 642 and 644. See also Darwin to Balfour in More Letters of Charles Darwin II, 424–425.

  23. In a letter to Darwin, August 1877. E. Romanes, Life and Letters, p. 64.

  24. “Evolution of Nerves and Nervo-Systems,” Proc. Roy. Instit. Gr. Brit. 8 (1879), 429. Lecture delivered May 25, 1877.

  25. Ibid., 430. At the conclusion of the lecture (448n), Romanes noted that other thinkers besides Spencer had come to similar conclusions. In his later (1885) book, Jelly-fish (p. 87n), he cited Lamarck: “Dans toute action, le fluide des nerfs qui la provoque, subit un mouvement de déplacement qui y donne lieu. Or, lorsque cette action a été plusieurs fois répétée il n'est pas douteux que le fluide que l'a exécutée, ne se soit frayé une route, qui lui devient alors d'autant plus facile à parcourir, qu'il l'a effectivement plus souvent frachie, et qu'il n'ait lui-même une âptitude plus grande à suivre cette route frayée, que celles qui le sont moins”. The excerpt is from Lamarck, Philosophie zoologique, (1809) II, 318–319. It is slightly different from that given by Romanes, who cites the same pages of the 1830 edition, which I have not seen. The reference was sent to Romanes by Darwin in a letter now in the possession of the American Philosophical Society. See also Life and Letters of George John Romanes, 2nd ed., p. 54.

  26. C. R. Darwin, Insectivorous Plants (London, 1875), pp. 234–277, 313–318.

  27. Ibid., p. 246. See also J. Schiller, “Claude Bernard et Darwin,” Physis 7 (1965), 484–485, or Claude Bernard et les problèmes scientifiques de son temps (Paris, 1967), pp. 150–151; F. Darwin (ed.), Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, 3rd ed. (London, 1887), pp. 98, 320–322; and F. Darwin and A. C. Seward, (eds.), More Letters of Charles Darwin (London, 1903) I, 216; II, 266–267, 369.

  28. Insectivorous Plants, 247–253.

  29. Ibid., 313–318.

  30. E. Romanes, Life and Letters, p. 34. The article referred to is A. W. Bennett, “Darwin on Carnivorous Plants,” Nature 12, (1875), 206–209, 228–231.

  31. E. Romanes, Life and Letters, pp. 56, 62–63, 65. Darwin and Seward More Letters of Charles Darwin, II, 51–52. See also Romanes' reference to Darwin's Drosera work in Phil. Trans. 167 (1877), 701n.–702n.

  32. “I did not suggest to Sanderson his electrical experiments, though no doubt, my remarks led to his thinking of them”-Darwin to J. D. Hooker, 1874, in More Letters of Charles Darwin, II, 402.

  33. Ibid., II, 395. Darwin and Burdon Sanderson's extensive correspondence on this subject is in the Darwin Collection of the University of Cambridge Library and the Sinclair Collection of the Woodward Library, University of British Columbia.

  34. Insectivorous Plants, p. 318.

  35. J. S. Burdon Sanderson and F. J. M. Page, “On the Mechanical Effects and on the Electrical Disturbance consequent upon Excitation of the Leaf of Dionaea muscipula,” Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond.25 (1877), 411–434; “On the Time Relations of the Excitatory Process in the Ventricle of the Heart of the Frog,” J. Physiol. 2 (1880), 384–435. See also F. Gotch, “Sir John Burdon Sanderson, Bart. 1828–1905,” Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. [B], 79 (1907), x-xi; F. A. Willius and T. J. Dry, A History of the Heart and the Circulation, (London, 1948), 186–187; and W. Biedermann, “Electromotive Action in Vegetable Cells,” Electrophysiology, trans. F. A. Welby (London: I, 1896; II, 1898) II, 1–31.

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  36. University of Cambridge Library, Darwin MS 58, #141.

  37. M. Foster, A Textbook of Physiology, 2nd ed. (London, 1878), pp. 85–86. See also Foster on protoplasmic irritability in his anonymous “Animals and Plants,” Quarterly Review, 126 (1869), 259–261.

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  38. Foster, A Textbook of Physiology, p. 86n.

  39. Ibid., p. 472.

  40. Ibid., p. 473. See also p. 485.

  41. Insectivorous Plants, pp. 254–259.

  42. Proc. Roy. Instit. 8 (1879), 432–433. John Burdon Sanderson, in an address to the British Association in 1889, rather acidly remarked that one of the alternatives open to a physiologist who fails to find structure to correlate with function “is to fall back on that worn-out Deus ex machina, protoplasm, as if it afforded a sufficient explanation of everything which cannot be explained otherwise.” Rep. Brit. Assn. Advanc. Sci. (1889), p. 607.

  43. Foster, in a review of Verworn's General Physiology in 1895, alluded to his “rash youth” when he had “wild dreams of building up a new physiology by beginning with the study of the amoeba and working upwards.” Quoted in A. Hughes, A History of Cytology (London, 1959), p. 142.

  44. M. Foster, “On the Beat of the Snail's Heart,” Rep. Brit. Assn. Advanc. Sci. (1859) Trans. of the Sections, p. 160.

  45. M. Foster, “Note on the Action of the Interrupted Current on the Ventricle of the Frog's Heart,” J. Anat., 3 (1869), 400–401.

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  46. For the background to this and subsequent work dealt with in this paper, see J. N. Langely, “Sir Michael Foster. In Memoriam,” J. Physiol.35 (1907), 234, 237, 238–239, and “Walter Holbrook Gaskell,” Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. [B], 88 (1915), xxviii-xxix; W. H. Gaskell, “The Contraction of Cardiac Muscle,” in Schäfer, Textbook of Physiology (London, 1900), II, 169–227. The classical researches of Stannius had generated the interest. Note the contributions of Engelmann, who in 1875 argued that, within the ventricle, the wave of contraction might be transmitted directly from one cardiac muscle cell to another. For later developments, see J. A. E. Eyster and W. J. Meek, “The Origin and Conduction of the Heart Beat,” Physiol. Rev. 1 (1921), 3–43.

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  47. M. Foster and A. G. Dew-Smith, “On the Behaviour of the Hearts of Mollusks under the influence of Electric Currents,” Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. 23 (1875), 320–321. See also Foster and Dew-Smith, “The Effects of the Constant Current on the Heart,” J. Anat. Physiol. 10 (1876), 735–771; and Foster, “Some Effects of Upas Antiar,” ibid., 586–594. For Romanes' response to Foster and Dew-Smith on the heart's rhythmicity and to Burdon Sanderson and Page on rhythmicity of Dionoea, see Phil. Trans. 171 (1880), 187–188.

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  48. Foster and Dew-Smith, Proc. Roy. Soc.23 (1875), 358; see also J. Anat. Physiol. 10 (1876), 739–741, 770–771.

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  49. Foster and Dew-Smith, J. Anat. Physiol.10 (1876), 761; and Proc. Roy. Soc. 23 (1875), 339.

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  50. Darwin's son Francis was working in London under Foster's and E. Klein's direction during this cardiological research. See F. Darwin, “On the Structure of the Snail's Heart,” J. Nat. Physiol. 10 (1876), 506–510. Young Darwin got to the crux of the problem when he said: “The anatomical relations corresponding to physiological conduction and insulation are no doubt at present obscure or unknown” (p. 510). Francis Darwin often assisted his father in botanical research.

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  51. Romanes' account of his discussions with Foster is in a letter to E. A. Schäfer of June 1875. E. Romanes' Life and Letters, pp. 30–31.

  52. Phil. Trans. 166 (1876), 286.

  53. “Possibly the microscope may show something, and so I have asked Schäfer to come down, who, as I know from experience, is what spiritualists call ‘a sensitive’-I mean he can see ghosts of things where other people can't. But still, if he can make out anything in the jelly of Aurelia, I shall confess it to be the best case of clairvoyance I ever knew” (Romanes to Darwin, August 1877 in E. Romanes, Life and Letters, p. 66).

  54. E. A. Schäfer, “Observations on the Nervous System of Aurelia aurita,” Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. Lond.169 (1878), 563–575. See Bullock and Horridge, Nervous Systems of Invertebrates, I, 466–473; C. Sherrington, “Sir Edward Sharpey-Schafer and his contributions to neurology,” Edinburgh Med. J. n.s., 92 (August 1935), 397–398; and E. G. T. Liddell, The Discovery of Reflexes (Oxford University Press, 1960), p. 30; also, W. C. Gibson, Creative Minds in Medicine (Springfield, Ill., 1963), pp. 58–59; J. R. Baker, “The Cell Theory: A Restatement, History, and Critique. Part III: The Cell as a Morphological Unit,” Quart. J. Microscop. Sci. 93 (1952), 173–174.

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  55. Schäfer's work, of course, required Romanes to modify his espousal of Spencer's views. See Jelly-fish, pp. 85–86. For Romanes' general ideas on the evolution of the nervous system, see his Mental Evolution in Animals (London, 1883), esp. pp. 24–33, 60, 64.

  56. G. J. Romanes, Phil. Trans. 167 (1877), 664n. The response of H. Newell Martin of John Hopkins was perhaps typical: “Many thanks for the abstract of your Medusa work which you sent me. It is very important, but I feel an unscientific tendency to grieve over the loss of conductivity along special tracts not differentiated into nerve fibres: it was so nice!” (Martin to Schäfer, March 24, 1878, Wellcome Institute of the History of Medicine [London], Sharpey-Schafer Collection, “American Colleagues”).

  57. Ibid., 685–690.

  58. “It becomes necessary, therefore, to modify the hypothesis of an automatic centre in the sinus in the sense that the action of that centre is not an intermittent but a continuous one.” Foster and Dew-Smith, J. Anat. Physiol.10 (1876), 771.

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  59. Phil. Trans. 171 (1880), 162–189.

  60. Edinburgh Med. J., n.s. 92 (August 1935), 397. But cf. W. Langdon-Brown, “W. H. Gaskell and the Cambridge Medical School,” Proc. Roy. Soc. Med. (Sect. of History of Medicine) 33 (1939), 1–12.

  61. M. Foster, A Textbook of Physiology, 2nd ed. pp. 89, 143.

  62. Foster and Dew-Smith, J. Anat. Physiol.10 (1876), 759.

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  63. W. H. Gaskell, “On the Rhythm of the Heart of the Frog and on the Nature of the Action of the Vagus Nerve,” Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. Lond.173 (1882), 993–1032.

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  64. W. H. Gaskell, “On the Innervation of the Heart, with Especial Reference to the Heart of the Tortoise,” J. Physiol.4 (1883), 43–127.

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  65. The quote is from Gaskell's second paper, J. Physiol. 4 (1883), 48. For the detailed description, see the first paper, Phil. Trans. 173 (1882), 994–995. Cf. Romanes' method, Phil. Trans. 167 (1887), 684–685, and Foster's and Dew-Smith's, J. Anat. Physiol. 10 (1876), 735.

  66. Phil. Trans. 173 (1882), 993–1105.

  67. Phil. Trans. 166 (1876), 299–300. Bullock notes that later research on the jellyfish utilized experiments similar to Gaskell's; Bullock does not trace the concept back to Romanes, who himself was not the first to use it, though he may have arrived at it independently (Bullock and Horridge, Nervous Systems of Invertebrates, I, 503).

  68. Phil. Trans. 173 (1882), 1031–1032.

  69. J. Physiol. 4 (1883), 43; see also p. 48.

  70. Phil. Trans. 166 (1876), 295.

  71. Ibid., 294.

  72. J. Physiol. 4, (1883), 51.

  73. Gaskell did not use the term “threshold.”

  74. Gaskell, J. Physiol., 4 (1883), 52.

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  75. Gaskell, J. Physiol., 4 (1883), 53.

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  76. Gaskell, J. Physiol., 4 (1883), 56.

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  77. “The intracardiac nerves and ganglia as they pass from the sinus to the ventricle are situated externally” (Gaskell, J. Physiol., 4 (1883), 62); see also 47.

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  78. Gaskell, J. Physiol., 4 (1883), 64. For Romanes' reaction, see Jelly-fish pp. 73n–74n.

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  79. See Gaskell, J. Physiol. 4 (1883), 66n for reference to Romanes.

  80. Ibid., 64–81. For evolution of the heart, see also 116–124.

  81. Ibid., 71.

  82. Phil. Trans. 166 (1876), 289–290.

  83. Phil. Trans. 171 (1880), 727. See Bullock and Horridge, Nervous Systems of Invertebrates, I, 493, 503.

  84. J. Physiol. 4 (1883), 86–88.

  85. History of Science 3 (1964), 53.

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French, R.D. Darwin and the physiologists, or the medusa and modern cardiology. J Hist Biol 3, 253–274 (1970). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00137354

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