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John Goodsir and the making of cellular reality

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References

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  16. Quoted in Abercrombie, Anatomy of Judgement, pp. 59–60.

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  25. Samuel Brown (1817–1856) entered the Edinburgh Medical School in 1832 and graduated in 1839. He devoted most of his time to chemical research, lecturing with Edward Forbes on the philosophy of science in the academic year 1840–1841. He applied unsuccessfully for the chemistry chair at Edinburgh in 1843.

  26. Goodsir, Anatomical Memoirs, I, 68–69.

  27. Ibid., p. 84.

  28. Ibid., p. 24.

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  38. Goodsir, Anatomical Memoirs, I, 84–85. For a contemporary account of these researches and their wider significance see Martin, Barry, “On the Unity of Structure in the Animal Kingdom,” Edinburgh New Phil. J., 22 (1837), 116–141, esp. pp. 118–122.

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  40. John Goodsir, “Lectures on Human Anatomy: 2. Organised Matter” (1856), pp. 7–11; “3. Textures” (1856), p. 1, EUL MSS, Gen. 289.

  41. John Goodsir, “Lectures on Comparative Anatomy” (1856), “Lecture 2. The Protozoan Type of Organization,” p. 2, EUL MSS, Gen. 289.

  42. John Goodsir, “Lectures on Comparative Anatomy” (1848), EUL MSS, Gen. 290, pp. 1–2.

  43. Ibid., pp. 2–7.

  44. John Goodsir, “Centres of Nutrition”, reprinted in Anatomical Memoirs, II, 389–392; quotation on p. 390.

  45. Ibid., p. 390n. Martin Barry (1802–1855) studied medicine in Edinburgh, Paris, Heidelberg, Berlin, and London. He was a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and took his M.D. in 1833. He lectured on physiology at St. Thomas's Hospital, London, in 1852 and became house surgeon to the Royal Maternity Hospital, Edinburgh, in 1853. Goodsir and Barry were not alone in taking the path from developmental facts to a theory of the endogenous origin of cells: the German embryologists Karl Reichert, Rudolf Kölliker, and Robert Remak argued from comparable premises. However, prior to the 1850s none of these followed Goodsir in asserting that cells in the adult arose only from preexisting cells. See Rather, Genesis of Cancer, pp. 120–121.

  46. Martin Barry, “Researches in Embryology. Third Series: A Contribution to the Physiology of Cells”, Phil. Trans., pt. 1 (1840), 529–593; quotation on p. 531; see plate xxii, fig. 164c.

  47. Martin Barry, “On the Corpuscles of the Blood — Part II”, Phil. Trans., pt. 1 (1841), 201–268; quotation on p. 201.

  48. Goodsir, “Lectures on Comparative Anatomy” (1856), pp. 79–81.

  49. Ibid., pp. 30–31.

  50. John Goodsir, [Preliminary Notes for Lectures on Comparative Anatomy], no date, EUL MSS, Gen. 290, pp. 2–3.

  51. The idea that nutrition is the fundamental function was found in the writings of Oken, with which Goodsir was familiar: Lorenz, Oken, Elements of Physiophilosophy, trans. A. Tulk (London: Ray Society, 1847), p. 193. It was also a major theme in the writings of French “zoological” physiologists in the 1820s. The positions of these authors often closely approximated Goodsir's: see, for example, M. H. M. Ducrotay de Blainville, De l'organisation des animaux, ou principes d'anatomie comparée (Paris: F. G. Levrault, 1822), pp. xxx–xxxi, 18; Charles Dhéré, De la nutrition, considerée anatomiquement et physiologiquement, dans la série des animaux (Paris: F.-G. Levrault, 1826), pp. 12–15; Michel Foderà, Discours sur la biologie, ou science de la vie; suivi d'un tableau des connaissances naturelles envisagées d'après leur nature et leur filiation (Paris: J. B. Baillière, 1826), pp. 11–12. However, I have been unable to find any references in Goodsir's writtings to this literature. For a discussion of the zoological school see Michael Gross, “The Lessened Focus of Feelings: A Transformation in French Physiology in the Early Nineteenth Century”, J. Hist. Biol., 12 (1979), 231–271, esp. pp. 259–262.

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  52. Goodsir, “Lectures on Comparative Anatomy” (1849), p. 2.

  53. The desire to found a comprehensive nonvascular physiology of animal tissues, and so to bridge the gap between the animal and vegetable kingdoms, was apparent in Schwann's original statement of the cell theory: Theodor, Schwann, Microscopical Researches into the Accordance in the Structure and Growth of Animals and Plants, trans. Henry Smith (London: Sydenham Society, 1847), pp. x-xi. For the background to theories of absorption in the early nineteenth century see J. V. Pickstone, “Absorption and Osmosis: French Physiology and Physics in the Early Nineteenth Century”, Physiologist, 20 (1977), 30–37.

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  54. John Goodsir, “Absorption, Ulceration, and the Structures Engaged in these Processes”, reprinted in Anatomical Memoirs, II, 403–407; quotation on p. 404.

  55. William, Cruikshank, The Anatomy of the Absorbing Vessels of the Human Body 2nd ed. (London: G. Nicol, 1790), pp. 59–60, 210, plate 2, fig. 3. Compare Goodsir, Anatomical Memoirs, II, 389, plate iv, figs. 5, 6, 11.

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  56. John Goodsir, “The Structure and Function of the Intestinal Villi”, reprinted in Anatomical Memoirs, II, 393–402; quotation on p. 394. Emphasis added. The existence of orifices on the villi had been contentious throughout the first decades of the nineteenth century. Rudolphi in 1802, for example, dismissed as optical illusions the observations of Cruikshank and others who claimed to have seen these openings: Karl Asmund Rudolphi, Anatomisch-Physiologische Abhandlungen (Berlin: Realschulbuchhandlung, 1802), pp. 88–92. However, twenty-seven years later Richard Grainger could still prefer Cruikshank's views to Rudolphi's: R. D. Grainger, Elements of General Anatomy, Containing an Outline of the Organization of the Human Body (London: S. Highley, 1829), p. 235. Johannes Müller supported Rudolphi; however, he confessed that “the act of absorption in other parts, as well as in the intestines, is to me quite an enigma”: J. Müller, Elements of Physiology, trans. William Baly, 2 vols. (London: Taylor and Walton, 1838), I, 265–270, 280. What was lacking was some concept of how, in the absence of orifices, nutrient could pass into the vessels. It was such a concept that Goodsir provided.

  57. Goodsir, “Intestinal Villi”, pp. 396–397.

  58. Ibid., 398.

  59. See Martin Barry, “On the Corpuscles of the Blood,” Phil. Trans., pt. 1 (1840), 595–612; William Bowman, “Muscle,” in Richard Bentley Todd, ed., The Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology, 5 vols. (London: Sherwood, Gilbert and Piper, 1836–1859).

  60. Goodsir, “Centres of Nutrition,” p. 389.

  61. John Goodsir, “On the Supra-Renal, Thymus, and Thyroid Bodies,” reprinted in Anatomical Memoirs, II, 66–77; quotations on pp. 66–68.

  62. Ibid., p. 72.

  63. Goodsir, “Lectures on Comparative Anatomy” (1848), lecture 2, p. 8.

  64. Goodsir, “Supra-Renal, Thymus and Thyroid,” pp. 72–73.

  65. Ibid., p. 76.

  66. John Goodsir, “Observations on the Structure and Some of the Pathological Changes of the Kidney and Liver,” reprinted in Anatomical Memoirs, II, 379–383; quotation on p. 383.

  67. Goodsir, “Intestinal Villi,” p. 402.

  68. See Goodsir, Anatomical Memoirs, I, 118.

  69. Ibid., pp. 131–133.

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    L. S. Jacyna

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Jacyna, L.S. John Goodsir and the making of cellular reality. J Hist Biol 16, 75–99 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00186676

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