Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Amoebae as Exemplary Cells: The Protean Nature of an Elementary Organism

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

Abstract

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.

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

Access this article

Log in via an institution

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

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Anonymous, 1887. Report on the 1887 Manchester meeting of the BAAS, Section D – Biology, “A discussion upon. The Present Aspect of the Cell Question.” Nature, p.␣592

  • Allman, G.J. 1879. “Protoplasm and the continuity of life.” Reprinted in George Basalla, William Coleman and Robert Kargon (eds.), 1970. Victorian Science: a self-portrait from the Presidential addresses to the British Association for the advancement of Science. Garden City, N.J.: Doubleday & Inc

  • Baker John R. 1952. The Cell-theory: A Restatement, History, and Critique. Part III. The Cell as a Morphological Unit. Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science 93(2): 157–190

    Google Scholar 

  • Bary Heinrich Anton de 1859. Die Mycetezoen. Ein Beitrag zur Kenntniss der niedersten Thiere. Zeitschift für wissenschaftliche Zoologie 10: 88–175

    Google Scholar 

  • Binet, Alfred 1910. The Psychic Life of the Micro-Organisms: A Study in Experimental Psychology, second reprinted edition, Chicago: Open Court Press. [Original French publication in 1888.]

  • Black Sandra E. 1981. Pseudopods and Synapses: the amoeboid theories of neuronal mobility and the early formulation of the synapse concept, 1894–1900. Bulletin of the History of Medicine 55: 34–58

    Google Scholar 

  • Breidbach Olaf. 2002. The former synthesis – Some remarks on the typological background of Haeckel’s ideas about evolution. Theory in Bioscience 121: 280–296

    Google Scholar 

  • Brewer Douglas B. 1994. Max Schultze and the Living, Moving, and Phagocytosing Leucocytes: 1865. Medical History 38: 91–101

    Google Scholar 

  • Brücke Ernst. 1861. Die Elementarorganismen. Sitzungsberichte der kaiserliche Akademie der Wissenschaften. 44. Bd. II.: 381–406.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bütschli, Otto. 1881. “Protozoa”. in Bronn’s Klassen und Ordnungen des Thierreichs Bd. 1. Leipzig: C. F. Winter

  • Campbell Neil A. and Reece Jane B. 2002. Biology. 6th ed. Toronto: Benjamin Cummings

    Google Scholar 

  • Carpenter William Benjamin. 1865. A Manual of Physiology, Including Physiological Anatomy for the Use of the Medical Student, 4th ed. London: John Churchill, [First edition 1846].

    Google Scholar 

  • Carpenter William Benjamin. 1856. The Microscope and Its Revelations. London: John Churchill

    Google Scholar 

  • Coleman William. 1976. Morphology between Type Concept and Descent Theory. Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 31: 149–175.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Corliss John O. 1989. The Protozoon and the Cell: A Brief Twentieth-Century Overview, Journal of the History of Biology 22: 307–323

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Delage Yves, Hérouard Edgard. 1896. Traité de Zoologie Concrète, Tome I: La Cellule et Les Protozoaires. Paris: Schleicher

    Google Scholar 

  • Dobell C. Clifford. 1911. The Principles of Protistology. Archiv für Protistenkunde 23(3):269–310

    Google Scholar 

  • Dröscher Ariane. 2002. Edmund B. Wilson’s The Cell and Cell Theory between 1896 and 1925. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 24: 357–389

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ehrenberg Christian. 1838. Infusionthierchen als vollkomene Organismen. Leipzig: Leopold Voss

    Google Scholar 

  • Farber Paul Lawrence. 1976. The Type-Concept in Zoology during the First Half of the Nineteenth Century. Journal of the History of Biology 9(1): 93–119

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Foster, Michael. 1880. A Text Book of Physiology, 3rd ed., revised. New York: MacMillan and Co

  • Foster, Michael. 1885. “Physiology.” Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th ed., Vol. XIX, New York: Scribner's & Sons, pp. 8–23

  • Geison Gerald L. 1969a. “The Protoplasmic Theory of Life and the Vitalist-Mechanist Debate.” Isis 60: 273–292

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Geison, Gerald L. 1969b. “Michael Foster.” entry in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography, 4: 79–84

  • Geison Gerald L. 1978. Michael Foster and the Cambridge School of Physiology: The Scientific Enterprise in Late Victorian Society. Princeton: Princeton University Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Haeckel, Ernst. 1863. “Über die Entwickelungstheorie Darwin’s.” reprinted in Gesammelte Populäre Vorträge aus dem Gebiete der Entwickelungslehre. Bonn: Strauss, pp. 1–28

  • Haeckel Ernst. 1866. Die Generelle Morphologie der Organismen. Allgemeine Grundzüge der Organischen Formen-Wissenschaft, mechanisch begründet durch die von Charles Darwins reformierte Deszendenz-Theorie, 2 Bde. Berlin: Georg Reimer

    Google Scholar 

  • Haeckel Ernst. 1868. Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte.Gemeinverständliche wissenschaftliche Vorträge über die Entwicklungslehre im Allgemeinen und diejenige von Darwin, Goethe und Lamarck im Besonderen, über die Anwendung derselben auf den Ursprung des Menschen und andere damit zussamenhängende Grundfragen der Naturwissenschaften, 2 Bde. Berlin: G. Reimer

    Google Scholar 

  • Haeckel Ernst. 1870. Biologische Studien: I Heft: Studien über die Moneren und andere Protisten, nebst einer Rede über Entwickelungsgang und Aufgabe der Zoologie. Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann

    Google Scholar 

  • Haeckel Ernst. 1874. Anthropogenie oder Entwicklungsgeschichte des Menschen. Gemeinverständliche Vorträge über die Grundzüge der menschlichen Keimes- und Stammes-Geschichte, 2. Bde. Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann

    Google Scholar 

  • Haeckel Ernst. 1878a. Das Protistenreich: Eine populäre Uebersicht über das Formengebiet der niedersten Lebewesen. Leipzig: Ernst Günther’s Verlag

    Google Scholar 

  • Haeckel Ernst. 1878b. “Zellseelen und Seelenzellen.” Vortrag gehalten am 22 März 1878 in “der concordia” zu Wien, In Gesammelte Populäre Vorträge aus dem Gebiete der Entwickelungslehre. Bonn: Emil Strauss

    Google Scholar 

  • Haeckel, Ernst. 1906. The Evolution of Man: A Popular Scientific Study. Translated from the 5th enlarged edition of Anthropogenie, edited by Joseph McCabe. New York: Peter Eckler.

  • Heitzmann Carl. 1883. Microscopical Morphology of the Animal Body in Health and Disease. New York: J. H. Vail & Co

    Google Scholar 

  • Hertwig Oscar. 1893. Die Zelle und die Gewebe, Grundzüge der Allgemeinen Anatomie und Physiologie. Jena: Gustav Fischer

    Google Scholar 

  • Hertwig, Oscar. 1895. The Cell: Outlines of General Anatomy and Physiology. Translated by M. Campbell and edited by Henry Johnstone Campbell. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co

  • Hertwig Richard. 1902. Die Protozoen und die Zelltheorie. Archiv für Protistenkunde 1: 1–40

    Google Scholar 

  • Hooke, Robert. 1665. Micrographia: Or Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses with Observations and Inquiries Thereupon. London: Martyn & Allestry

  • Huxley, T.H. 1968 [1868]. “On the Physical Basis of Life.” Collected Essays, Vol. 1. New York: Greenwood Press, pp. 130–165

  • Huxley T.H. 1870. Lessons in Elementary Physiology, 4th ed. London: MacMillan and Co

    Google Scholar 

  • Huxley T.H. 1875. A Course of Practical Instruction in Elementary Biology. London: MacMillan

    Google Scholar 

  • Jacobs Natasha X. 1989. From Unit to Unity: Protozoology, Cell Theory, and the New Concept of Life. Journal of the History of Biology. 22(2): 215–242

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jacyna L.S. 1984. The Romantic Programme and the Reception of Cell Theory in Britain. Journal of the History of Biology, 17(1): 13–48

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jones Thomas Wharton. 1844. Report on the changes in Blood in Inflammation and on the Nature of the Healing Process. British and Foreign Medical Review 18: 225–280

    Google Scholar 

  • Kölliker Albert. 1845. Die Lehre von der thierischen Zelle und den einfacheren thierischen Formelementen, nach den neuesten Fortschritten dargestellt. Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Botanik 1(2): 46–102

    Google Scholar 

  • Leidy, Joseph. 1879. Fresh-water Rhizopods of North America. Report of the United States Geological Survey of the Territories. Washington: Government Printing Office

  • Limoges, Camille. 1994. “Milne-Edwards, Darwin, Durkheim and the Division of Labour: A Case Study in the Conceptual Exchanges between the Social and the Natural Sciences.” I.B. Cohen (ed.), The Natural Sciences and the Social Sciences. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Dordrecht: Kluwer, pp. 317–343

  • Lorch I. Joan. 1973. Some Historical Aspects of Amoeba Studies. In Kwang W. Jeon (ed.), The Biology of the Amoeba, pp. 1–36. New York: Academic Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Maienschein Jane. 1991. From Presentation to Representation in Wilson’s The Cell. Biology and Philosophy 6: 227–254

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Margulis Lynn, Corliss John O., Michael Melkonian, Chapman David J. 1990. Handbook of Protoctista: The Structure, Cultivation, Habitats and Life Histories of the Eukaryotic Microorganisms and Their Descendants Exclusive of Animals, Plants and Fungi; A guide to the algae, ciliates, foraminifera, sporozoa, water molds, slime molds and other protoctists. Boston: Jones and Bartlett

    Google Scholar 

  • Mendelsohn J. Andrew. 2003. Lives of the Cell Journal of the History of Biology 36: 1–37.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nyhart Lynn K. 1995. Biology Takes Form: Animal Morphology and the German Universities, 1800–1900. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Owen, Richard. 1855 [1843]. Lectures on the Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the Invertebrate Animals, Delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons, 2nd ed. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans

  • Reynolds Andrew. 2007. The Theory of the Cell State and the Question of Cell Autonomy in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century Biology.Science in Context, 20(1): 71–95

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Richmond Marsha L. 1989. Protozoa as Precursors of Metazoa: German Cell Theory and Its Critics at the Turn of the Century. Journal of the History of Biology, 22: 243–276.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sapp Jan. 2003. Genesis: The Evolution of Biology. Oxford: Oxford University Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Schäfer, Edward A. 1885. “Animal Histology”, section I of Article on Histology. Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th ed., Vol. XII. New York: Scribner's & Sons, pp. 4–10.

  • Schloegel Judy Johns, Schmidgen Henning. 2002. General Physiology, Experimental Psychology, and Evolutionism: Unicellular Organisms as Objects of Psychophysiological Research, 1877–1918. Isis, 93(4): 614–645

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schultze, Max. 1987. [1861]. “Über Muskelkörpchen und das was man eine Zelle zu nennen habe.” Archiv Anatomische Physiologische wissenschaftlich Medicin, S.1–27: Reprinted in Klassiche Schriften zur Zellenlehre von Matthias Jacob Schleiden, Theodor Schwann, Max Schultze, eingeleitet und bearbeitet von Ilse Jahn, Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft, Geest & Portig K.-G

  • Schultze Max. 1863. Das Protoplasm der Rhizopoden und der Pflanzenzellen, ein Beitrag zur Theorie der Zelle. Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann. Protozoa, Vol. IV

    Google Scholar 

  • Schweber Silvan S. 1980. Darwin and the Political Economists: Divergence of Character. Journal of the History of Biology, 13: 195–289

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Siebold, Carl von. 1849. “Über einzellige Pflanzen und Tiere.” Zeitschrift fÜr wissenschaftliche Zoologie 1: 270–294 [Reprinted in English translation in Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science 1(2), 1853, pp. 111–121, 195–206]

  • Simpson Alastair G.B., Roger Andrew J. 2002. Eukaryotic Evolution: Getting to the Root of the Problem. Current Biology, 12: R691–R693

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Strick James E. 2000. Sparks of Life: Darwinism and the Victorian Debates over Spontaneous Generation. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Thomson J. Arthur. 1903. Progress of Science in the Century, volume XXV in the series The Nineteenth Century. London: Linscott

    Google Scholar 

  • Verworn Max. 1889. Psycho-physiologische Protistenstudien: Experimentelle Untersuchungen. Jena: Fischer

    Google Scholar 

  • Verworn Max. 1895. Allgemeine Physiologie: Eine Grundriss der Lehre vom Leben. Jena: Fischer

    Google Scholar 

  • Verworn, Max. 1899. General Physiology: An Outline of the Science of Life, translated from the second German edition and edited by Frederic S. Lee. London: MacMillan and Co

  • Weindling Paul. 1981. Theories of the Cell State in Imperial Germany. In Charles Webster (ed.), Biology, Medicine, and Society, 1840–1940, (pp. 99–155). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilson E.B. 1896. The Cell in Development and Inheritance. London: MacMillan Co. (2nd ed., 1900; 3rd ed., 1925)

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies, Cape Breton University, 1250 Grand Lake Road, P.O. Box 5300, Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada, B1P 6L2

    Andrew Reynolds

Authors
  1. Andrew Reynolds
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Andrew Reynolds.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Reynolds, A. Amoebae as Exemplary Cells: The Protean Nature of an Elementary Organism. J Hist Biol 41, 307–337 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10739-007-9142-8

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10739-007-9142-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation