Skip to main content

Scientific traditions in conflict: the Rusconi–von Baer controversy on the embryology of frogs and the development of the cell theory

Theory in Biosciences volume 140, pages 45–75 (2021)Cite this article

Abstract

In 1835, the meaning of the cleavage furrows in the division of frog eggs was the cause of a heated argument between the Italian naturalist Mauro Rusconi and Karl Ernst von Baer. These furrows were first described by Prévost and Dumas (Ann Sci Nat 2:100–121, 129–149, 1824b) who did not realize they cut the egg into separate masses. Rusconi (Développement de la grenouille comune depuis le moment de sa naissance jusque a son état parfait, Giusti, Milano, 1826) hypothesized a connection between the furrows and a peculiar crystallization of the content of the egg which eventually produced elementary molecules as the building blocks of the embryo. von Baer (Arch Anat Phys Wiss Med 6:481–509, 1834) was the first to establish a link between the furrows and an active process of dichotomous division he considered to be the basis for all further development and differentiation. The present paper analyses the theoretical reasons behind these divergent interpretations and focuses attention on their implications for the development of the cell theory and the conceptions of life. Prévost, Dumas and Rusconi interpreted cleavage and the whole embryonic development in the light of eighteenth-century scientific theories and the French materialism of the early nineteenth century, which explained life in terms of ordered molecular movement. Starting from other premises partly rooted in German philosophy von Baer (1834) gave a totally different picture which anticipated the cell theory and modern embryology.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.

Access options

Buy single article

Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

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

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7

Reprinted with permission from the Handschriftenabteilung der Universitätsbibliothek Giessen, Nachlaß von Baer, Verschiedene Zeichnungen Embryos. Tafeln und Zeichnungen, Bd. 22, Bl. 19 (colour figure online)

Notes

  1. Beetschen quoted the German translation of Rusconi’s second letter to Ernst Heinrich Weber which was first published in an Italian periodic (Rusconi 1835b). In the present paper, all five of Rusconi’s letters are quoted in their original Italian version.

  2. Rusconi's biographers reported that he did not always consider his words (Biffi 1853; Cattaneo 1925). A more realistic picture of the man was given by Verga (1869, pp. 41–52) in his account of the dispute between Rusconi and Bartolomeo Panizza (1785–1867). During this controversy which began in 1839 and was settled in 1844 by a commission that decided in favour of Panizza, Rusconi behaved like a true villain both in public and in private. Just as in the case of von Baer, he was greatly disturbed to see that Panizza had entered what he considered to be his personal field of research, i.e. the pattern of the lymphatic vessels in amphibians. Besides, he misinterpreted one of Panizza's sentences as an accusation of plagiarism. Concerning the development of frog eggs, in his five letters to Weber Rusconi (1835a, b, c, 1838, 1839) made a full list of accusations against von Baer: his boastful attitude to pontificate about the work of other researchers, while he himself was devoid of any skill when it came to carrying out scientific research; mental blindness owing to preconceptions and excessive imagination; ridiculous self-congratulatory praise of trivial results; extremely boring diffuse writing; sloppiness and malicious falsification of the quoted literature; ignorant petty physiologist and logician; liar; and so on. With reference to Rusconi’s second letter to Weber (1835b), Gasco (1880, p. 9) commented: "Rusconi assails and shakes him [von Baer] in such a way that on several occasions the reader of that incandescent letter feels shivers running down his spine and is going to let out: poor Baer!". In his autobiography, von Baer (1866, p. 380) said only a few words about this aggressive attitude: "… Ruscomi [sic] had been very much angered by my remark that he as well as Prévost and Dumas had observed division only on the surface, hence their usage of the term ‘cleavage’, an anger which he vented in Müllers Archiv, 136, p. 205, etc., and which, when I made his personal acquaintance 10 years later, I found still present". Most probably von Baer visited Rusconi in Pavia while travelling from Genoa to Venice via Milan in Autumn 1845. To our knowledge, this is the only available account of this face-to-face meeting, as Rusconi’s unpublished writings have been almost entirely lost. Rusconi died in 1849, but he still attacked von Baer in his final posthumously published work on amphibian development (Rusconi 1854)..

  3. In this study, Rusconi focussed attention on the development of branchial circulation. Contrary to Cuvier, he came to the conclusion that in larval amphibians this circulation is not identical to that of fish (Rusconi 1817, 1819).

  4. "As a consequence, it is fully demonstrated that the tadpoles exist before fertilization, a very interesting truth that I should like to prove for the sake of clarity in the following way. The unfertilized eggs do not differ at all from the fertilized ones; but the fertilized eggs are nothing else than the tadpoles concentrated and shrunk on themselves. It follows that the same must be held as to the unfertilized eggs. Thus, the tadpoles predate fertilization and in order to develop they only need the fertilizing fluid of the male" (Spallanzani 1768, p. 54).

  5. In the introduction to his book, Rusconi pointed out that he had finished this study in 1821, but delayed its publication because he was not satisfied with the plates and wanted to draw and engrave them again. Therefore, the paper of Prévost and Dumas (1824b) was published first.

  6. von Baer cited the principles of Cuvier as an argument against the Darwinian theory of evolution. Among other things, he based his criticism of the kinship between ascidians and vertebrates (von Baer 1873) on Cuvier’s embranchements, i.e. the existence of four distinct composition plans depending, in turn, on different patterns of the nervous system (Raineri 2009). In a letter to Anton Dohrn of 23 June 1875 (Groeben 1993, pp. 79–80), von Baer contrasted the theory of natural selection with Cuvier’s principles of the conditions of existence and of the final causes. "I am convinced that every normal development of an organism … must be regulated to make existence on this earth possible. Should an organism therefore, according to my opinion, be constructed that has to seek for its food on terra firma, then linked to this is the fact that it acquires jointed feet, and, what is more, according to the laws of mechanics". A few lines below he added: "I cannot break away from my old view that nature reasons and strives toward goals, whether immanently or transcendentally". While transcendental finality (Zweckmässigkeit) is a philosophical concept, immanent finality (Zielstrebigkeit) can be investigated by science (Kolchinsky and Levit 2019). Zielstrebigkeit, in fact, manifests itself in living organisms inasmuch as they are constructed mechanistically in order to exist in a given environment. von Baer (1866, p. 449) reasserted his position in the following comment to his own treatise on embryology (von Baer 1828, 1837): "My entire presentation, in both the above-mentioned volumes, has been reproached for being too mechanical. I admit that I accepted this reproach as a compliment, for one stands more firmly on a board than on aether or the sky at dawn". These nebulous concepts were likely to be the speculations of Naturphilosophie.

  7. According to Pander (1817a, b), the developing germinal disc consisted at first of two layers, membrana pituitosa or mucous layer closer to yolk, and membrana serosa or serous layer. At a later stage, a third membrana vasculosa, or vascular layer, appeared between the two previous ones. In this treatise on embryology von Baer (1828) called serous and mucous layers animal and vegetative layers and reported that each of them differentiated, respectively, into skin and muscle layer, and vascular and mucous layer. von Baer (1828, 1834) acknowledged Pander’s priority in the discovery of the germ layers but rejected Pander’s idea that these layers and the spinal cord formed by a process of coagulation (von Baer 1866, pp. 299–300).

  8. von Baer used the term "type" as a synonym of "developmental scheme" (Brauckmann 2011). Rather than being referred to an ideal archetype, the geometrical appearance of the type of vertebrates according to von Baer depended on his attempts to illustrate the three-dimensional development of the earliest embryonic rudiments by two-dimensional schematic drawings. In order to elaborate a general theory of development based on universal patterning laws, von Baer also intended to identify the types of invertebrates and prove the homology of their germ layers with those of vertebrates. To this end, he carried out preliminary studies of the development of insects, crustaceans, molluscs and worms. He also showed the developing egg of the river crayfish (Astacus fluviatilis) in four drawings in the plate of his Epistola on the mammalian egg (von Baer 1827a). On p. 24 of the same book, however, von Baer said a few words about an unpleasant affair he described at length in his autobiography (von Baer 1866, pp. 339–341). While he was cooperating with Burdach in the compilation of a treatise on physiology (Burdach 1828), von Baer told him privately that the development in arthropods is similar, but dorsoventrally inverted as compared to that of vertebrates, inasmuch as their embryo consists at first of a ventral axis and two bilaterally symmetrical plates which are thicker on the ventral than on the dorsal side. Without informing von Baer, Burdach communicated this observation to Martin Heinrich Rahtke (1793–1860), who was investigating the development of the river crayfish. Rathke (1825) then published his own results as soon as possible placing emphasis on the initial development of the crayfish from a ventral line. To the opposite, von Baer delayed his own publication since he knew that Rathke was working on the same subject and supposed that they could prepare a cooperative paper under the supervision of Burdach. Soon, however, he learnt that Rathke had proceeded to publish his preliminary results. von Baer was greatly disturbed by this misconduct and expressed some resentment in a letter to Rathke on 26 August 1826 (Universitätsbibliothek Giessen, Handschriftenabteilung, Nachlass von Baer, Bd. 25). In the same letter, however, von Baer credited Rathke with an excellent work that confirmed independently his own results. Rathke replied to von Baer that he knew nothing about his research on arthropods as Burdach had represented the hypothesis of their dorsoventrally inverted development as his own discovery. von Baer was later reconciled with Rathke, but his relationship with Burdach soured. In a subsequent study, Rathke (1829) described the germ layers of the crayfish and other developmental analogies between arthropods and vertebrates in greater detail and cited von Baer's 1827a preliminary observations on this subject.

  9. Rusconi gave an account of oogenesis in the green frog in his work on the development of a land salamander. This study started in 1839, but was interrupted during the dispute with Panizza and only resumed in 1843. Rusconi, however, died in 1849 before publishing his results. The revised edition of the 1839 manuscript, including six plates from Rusconi’s original drawings, was published in 1854 by Joseph Morganti.

  10. In the same study, Rusconi gave the first account of the modified neurulation in fish. In his words, "in fish at first the dorsal rod is not divided into two halves which are apart from one another, as found in frogs, salamanders and many other animals. In fish the back forms as a single piece altogether" (Rusconi 1835c, p. 256). Actually, in fish the neural plate sinks inside forming the neural keel which rounds up into a solid cylindrical rod. The neural tube is formed by cavitation at a later stage. By contrast, von Baer (1837) reported that neurulation in fish was nearly identical to that of amphibians, except from the initial position of the neural folds which were positioned further apart from one another. Almost certainly, he misinterpreted the germ ring as neural folds.

  11. Following the publication of Ecker’s embryological atlas (1851–1859), the yolk plug was usually called Ecker’s Dotterpfropf or bouchon de Ecker.

  12. Rusconi (1854, p. 36) asserted that "the law that was established by Serres is correct, unfortunately this famous anatomist has exaggerated, as far as we can judge, its importance and application". According to Serres (1827), the spinal cord was formed by apposition of successive layers, while Rusconi (1826) reported an origin by fusion of lateral folds. Another disagreement between the two naturalists concerned the anatomy of the larval nervous system.

  13. von Baer came to disapprove of the definition ‘Dorsal chord, Chorda dorsalis’ that he used in his treatise on embryology (von Baer 1828). "I have always considered this chord to be specific to the central trunk, and whatever is formed above it to belong to the dorsal side, whatever is under it, to the abdominal side. I therefore would have preferred the word 'Vertebral chord, Chorda vertebralis’" (von Baer 1866, p. 448).

  14. As he wrote in the introduction to his 1826 book, Rusconi had developed a special microscope to overcome the difficulty of investigating opaque objects and wanted to make it available to other students, including Prévost and Dumas as a sign of his esteem.

  15. Concerning the Graafian follicle, von Baer was led into error by his tendency towards generalization and by the principle that differences at a later stage can be traced back to original conformity. As he did not regard it as a newly created structure that was present only in mammals, he considered the Graafian follicle (the maternal egg) to be the equivalent of the chicken egg. Accordingly, he interpreted the mammalian egg (the foetal ovum) and the granular layer- cumulus ooforus (which consist of follicle cells) as the analogues, respectively, of the Purkinje vesicle and the stratum proligerum-cumulus (germinal layer) of the egg of chickens and other vertebrates (von Baer 1827a, 1866).

  16. For instance, on p. 87 of the Dictionnaire des Sciences Naturelles, vol. 58 (1829) we can read that: "These bodies, which have been classified by naturalists within the infusoria with the name of cercariae and are commonly called animalcules spermatiques, according to MM. Prévost and Dumas should be the first rudiment of the nervous system". The same classification within the infusoria under the name of von Baer was reported by Burdach’s treatise on physiology (1828, § 84).

  17. Following the triumph of Darwinian theory, the prestige of Lamarck has been underestimated. However, "far from being universally scorned, Jean Baptiste Lamarck became known as ‘the French Linnaeus’ during the 1820s. Speaking at Lamarck’s funeral in December 1829, Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire remarked that the last years of the old naturalist’s life had been brightened by the awareness of how much his work was appreciated in Europe, and especially in France" (Corsi 2009, p. 167).

  18. Leading exponents of the theory of the fibre were Albrecht von Haller (1757), Erasmus Darwin (1794) and Xavier Bichat (1801). According to Darwin (1794, p. 20), for instance, "the spirit of animation is the immediate cause of the contraction of animal fibres, it resides in the brain and nerves, and is liable to general or partial diminution or accumulation".

  19. The same preconceptions about the mechanism of fertilization prevented Rusconi (1819, 1821) from understanding the meaning of the spermatophorae in salamanders, although he described their mating behaviour in great detail (Gasco 1880).

  20. Carlo Chiolini quoted Amours des salamandres aquatiques (Rusconi 1821) and the still unpublished results on the development of the green frog to confute preformation and the above-mentioned theory of the fibre. According to this theory life began at fertilization, as the sperm (the agent part) elicited in the fibre (the reagent part) "the vital principle which is inherent to the nervous substance". On the contrary, Chiolini (1825, p. 66) agreed with Rusconi "to consider generation to be a kind of crystallization".

  21. On the subject of amphibian artificial cross-fertilization, Rusconi (1838, p. 348) reported that "with the help of the sun heat the generative humour of the toad elicited in the molecules of the material of the egg [of frog] the internal movement which represents the organic life of the egg itself". While it was "slow and regular" in normal conditions, this movement was "irregular and turbulent" in cross-fertilized eggs which underwent abortive development.

  22. With his usual precision, von Baer (1834, p. 503) asserted that he could not specify the extent to which the female generative fluid cooperated in the process of division. In any case, "it is clear that as soon as it is reached by the [male] generative substance diluted with water, the yolk sphere reveals itself as endowed with autonomous life. Previously it had only a latent life, as autonomous life will be aroused by artificial or natural fertilization with the same degree of certainty regardless the egg has remained for a short or long time in the dilated oviduct".

  23. "It appears that the [first] furrow elongates in such a way that the mass of yolk retreats on both sides in opposite directions, in the meanwhile as the walls which are generated by the growing furrow form transitory folds and sometimes a slight, but clearly visible tremble runs across the adjoining mass of yolk. From this observation it clearly follows that the mass of yolk is not furrowed, as to say, by an invisible tool, but it splits into parts by a vital act" (von Baer 1834, p. 486).

  24. Fifty years later, Hertwig (1884) asserted that cells divide along their long axes and put this rule into relationship with the central position of the nucleus and the orientation of the mitotic spindle parallel to the longest axis of the protoplasmic mass.

  25. "As regards the subdivision of the cells, we have already seen how a jutting out of the cell-membrane may be produced by its more vigorous growth in certain situations. But a jutting inwards into the cavity of the cell may also result from the very same process. Now, if we imagine this jutting inwards to take place in a circular form around a cell, as the consequence of a partial increase in the force of its growth, it may proceed to such an extent, that one cell may be separated into two, connected together only by a short peduncle, which may afterwards be absorbed. This would illustrate the most simple form of subdivision in a cell. In animal cells, however, which undergo subdivision, that is, the fibre-cells, the process is more complicated; firstly, because when an elongated cell subdivides, it splits into many fibres, and, secondly, because the cells are so very minute. The process, therefore, cannot for these reasons be accurately traced, and the following is all we can detect: a cell becomes elongated on two opposite sides into several fibres; from the angle, which the fibres on either side form with each other, a striated appearance gradually extends over the body of the cell; this formation of striae becomes more and more distinct, until the body of the cell splits entirely into fibres" (Schwann 1839, p. 218).

  26. According to several authors (e.g. Roger 1963; Bowler 1971), preformation in the broad sense of the word includes at least two theories. One, which may be called pre-existence, assumes that every living organism was formed by God since the Creation. An extreme version of this idea is the theory of encasement (emboîtement), which means that all future living individuals were encased within the reproductive organs of either the mother or the father from the beginning. Ovists and animalculists thought that either the egg or the sperm contained a miniaturized foetus. As noted by von Baer (1834), by the 1830s the theory of pre-existence had already been discredited, while many naturalists (including von Baer himself) still subscribed to some form of preformation, or the hypothesis that the future organism was preformed in the egg in a more or less organized state as a result of natural agents without the need of a divine intervention.

  27. "In science the ideas become connected to one another; when a system prevails, its roots spread over its whole domain and give rise to opinions which often survive the hypotheses which generated them. The pre-existence of germs had as a result a sharp separation between organized and inorganic bodies, as the latter were thought to be totally devoid of germs …. Sciences became subdivided into two classes, organic and inorganic …. This is the origin of the ideas about the growth of the organized bodies and the elementary forms of the organs, which was claimed to be the exact opposite of the growth of the inorganic bodies. The latter occurs by juxtaposition: the molecules of growth place themselves around the original individual according to certain laws. The former should occur by intussusception; the primitive tissue expands itself and increases in size" (Serres 1827, pp. 59, 60).

  28. The terms inducer and induction still used by embryologists to deal with organizing centres and embryonic patterning were introduced by Hans Spemann (1938) by analogy with magnetic induction. Just as von Baer, Spemann adopted a mechanistic approach even when he was not a reductionist himself. At the end of his 1938 book, he wanted to express his conviction "that the suitable reaction of a germ fragment, endowed with the most diverse potencies, in an embryonic ‘field’, its behaviour in a definite ‘situation’, is not a common chemical reaction, but that these processes of development, like all vital processes, are comparable, in the way they are connected, to nothing we know in such a degree as to those vital processes of which we have the most intimate knowledge, viz., the psychical ones” (Spemann 1938, p. 372).

  29. "The fundamental point of every thing escapes us; we have investigated all non-essential difficulties, and we have solved them, until we came to the crux of the question, and then, suddenly the truth eludes all our efforts, their only usefulness being to testify to our impotence" (Dumas 1827, p. 454).

  30. According to von Baer in amphibians just as in birds this protein-containing jelly was used for nourishment, at the larval or embryonic stage, respectively. He wondered how Rusconi (1826) could deny that tadpoles fed on particles of the jelly coat. Rusconi (1854) replied vehemently that the jelly coat did not provide any nourishment for the embryo, but he misquoted von Baer who had ascribed this feeding behaviour to larvae, not embryos of frogs.

  31. "A few hours after fertilization a transformation begins, insofar as the upper side of the egg becomes divided by furrows which take their origin from the middle of the germinal layer and elongate on the brown hemisphere, and soon later on the clear one. The first furrow forms according to a diameter of the germinal layer, soon another one intersects it at right angle and a third one forms subsequently according to the horizontal section of the egg. Thus, the germinal layer comes to be subdivided by this horizontal furrow into two halves, each consisting of four segments. Other furrows form parallel to the initial ones and develop gradually, and then, they also are cut in the middle by transverse furrows. As a result, after approximately twelve hours the whole egg looks like a sharkskin. At a later stage, these furrows gradually disappear, and after sixteen hours, the egg is smooth again. After the furrows have disappeared, a tiny bump which may be called primitive streak is seen to rise in the middle of the germinal layer. Approximately at the thirtieth hour (as development goes on fast) on each side of the primitive streak other wider bumps arise, the dorsal plates" (Burdach 1828, p. 223). At page 297 of the 1837 edition of Burdach’s treatise the same paragraph authored by von Baer states that: "A few hours after fertilization a transformation begins, insofar as the upper side of the egg becomes divided by furrows which take their origin from the middle of the germinal layer and elongate on the brown hemisphere, and soon later on the clear one. After the furrows have disappeared a tiny bump which may be called primitive streak is seen to rise in the middle of the germinal layer etc". The description of the cleavage stage has been cut away altogether, while that of the initial formation of the embryo is the same of the 1828 edition. In the meantime, however, von Baer (1834, 1837) had changed his views on these topics significantly. Seemingly, he did not collaborate with Burdach in modifying this paragraph. Probably this split was a result of von Baer’s permanent settlement in St. Petersburg from 1834. On the other hand, he decided to shift to Russia also owing to frictions he had with Burdach while living in Königsberg (von Baer 1866, see note 8).

  32. This preliminary note was cited by Remak (1852, p. 52) only in a footnote: "As for it concerns my observations on cell division, since several years Carl Ernst von Bär (Fror. N. Notiz 1846. No. 839) has expressed the opinion that the germinal vesicle coincides with the nucleus, the nuclei of the embryonic cells are the result of its division, and all cells and nuclei increase in number by division. When this article was already in press I turned my attention to this communication of Bär through Mr. Johannes Müller". Conversely, long before the paper of Virchow (1852) von Baer (1847) cited some preliminary observations of Remak on the origin of tissues by continuous division.

  33. At the beginning of his 1847 note, von Baer (1847, p. 231) declared: "I have just finished a research which, as I believe, will leave its mark", though in a footnote he specified more modestly: "at least as for it concerns the experiments of artificial fertilization on marine animals". In any case, he felt that that the discovery of the egg division "brought me into the innermost tabernacle of embryology" (von Baer 1866, p. 377).

References

  • Baker JR (1953) The cell-theory: a restatement, history, and critique. Part IV. The multiplication of cells. Quart J Micr Sci 94:407–440

    Google Scholar 

  • Baker JR (1955) The cell-theory: a restatement, history, and critique. Part V. The multiplication of nuclei. Q J Micr Sci 96:449–481

    Google Scholar 

  • Balibar E (1997) Spinoza: from individuality to transindividuality. Mededelingen vanwege het Spinozahuis 71:1–36

    Google Scholar 

  • Beetschen J-C (2001) Amphibian gastrulation: history and evolution of a 125 year-old concept. Int J Dev Biol 45:771–795

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bichat X (1801) Anatomie générale, appliquée a la physiologie et a la médecine. Brosson, Gabon et Cie, Libraires, Paris

  • Biffi S (1853) Sulla vita scientifica, e sulle opere di anatomia e fisiologia comparata del dottor Mauro Rusconi. Annali Universali di Medicina 145:566–612; 146:54–119, 299–345

  • Blyakher LY (1982) History of embryology in Russia. From the middle of the eighteenth to the middle of the nineteenth century. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington

    Google Scholar 

  • Bowler PJ (1971) Preformation and preexistence in the seventeenth century: a brief analysis. J Hist Biol 4:221–222

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Brauckmann S (2008) The many spaces of Karl Ernst von Baer. Biol Theor 3:85–89

    Google Scholar 

  • Brauckmann S (2011) Axes, planes and tubes, or the geometry of embryogenesis. Stud Hist Philos Biol Biomed Sci 42:381–390

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Brauckmann S, Gilbert SF (2004) Sucking in the gut: a brief history of early studies on gastrulation. In: Stern CD (ed) Gastrulation. From cells to embryos. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, New York, pp 1–20

    Google Scholar 

  • Briggs R, King TJ (1952) Transplantation of living nuclei from blastula cells to enucleated frogs’ eggs. Proc Nat Acad Sci USA 38:455–463

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Buess H (1947) The contribution of Geneva physicians to the physiology of development in the 19th century. Bull Hist Med 21:871–897

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Burdach KF (1828) Die Physiologie als Erfahrungswissenschaft. II. Mit Beiträgen von Karl Ernst von Baer, Heinrich Rathke und Ernst H.F. Meyer. Leopold Voss, Leipzig

    Google Scholar 

  • Burdach KF (1837) Die Physiologie als Erfahrungswissenschaft. II. Mit Beiträgen von Karl Ernst von Baer, Heinrich Rathke und Ernst H.F. Meyer. Zweite berichtigte und vermehrte Auflage, mit Beiträgen von Heinrich Rathke, Karl Theodor von Siebold und G. Valentin. Leopold Voss, Leipzig

    Google Scholar 

  • Castellani C (1979) Una rilettura ottocentesca di Spallanzani: la Nouvelle théorie de la génération di Prévost e Dumas (1824). Hist Philos Life Sci 1:215–259

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Castellani C (1980) Fra preformismo e epigenesi: le teorie di Prévost e Dumas. Hist Philos Life Sci 2:253–268

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Cattaneo G (1925) Mauro Rusconi e l’Università di Pavia. pp. 458–494 in Contributi alla storia dell’Università di Pavia, Tipografia Cooperativa, Pavia

  • Chiolini C (1825) Aforismi medico-filosofici sulla scienza della vita, e riflessioni critiche sulla teoria dell’infiammazione del professore Tommasini, e sulla dottrina del dottore Broussais etc. Biblioteca Italiana 37:63–77

    Google Scholar 

  • Corsi P (1988) The age of Lamarck. Evolutionary theories in France 1790–1830. California University Press, Berkeley

    Google Scholar 

  • Corsi P (2009) Evolution pioneers: Lamarck’s reputation saved by his zoology. Nature 461:167

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Darwin E (1794) Zoonomia, or the laws of organic life. Johnson IJ, London

    Google Scholar 

  • De Felici M, Siracusa G (2000) The rise of embryology in Italy: from the Renaissance to the early 20th century. Int J Dev Biol 44:515–521

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • De Santis D (2007) Chimica, scienze della vita e generazione: le ricerche di Prévost e Dumas. Rendiconti dell’ Accademia nazionale delle scienze detta dei XL, Memorie di scienze fisiche e naturali, V 31:321–332

    Google Scholar 

  • Detlefsen K (2006) Explanation and demonstration in the Haller-Wolff debate. In: Smith JEH (ed) The problem of animal generation in early modern philosophy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 235–261

    Google Scholar 

  • Dröscher A (2018) Germ cells and somatic cells in evolutionary biology. In: Cells in evolutionary biology, vol I. CRC Press, Boca Raton, pp 24–48

  • Drulhon J (2011) Jean-Baptiste Dumas (1800–1884). La vie d’un chimiste dans les allées de la Science et du Pouvoir. Hermann, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Duchesneau F (1987) Genèse de la théorie cellulaire. Bellarmin-Vrin, Collection Analytiques, Montréal, Paris

  • Dumas JB (1827) Note de M. Dumas sur la théorie de la génération. Ann Sci Nat 12:443–454

    Google Scholar 

  • Dutrochet H (1826) Nouvelles recherches sur l’oeuf des animaux vertébrés. Mém Soc Médic Emul Paris 9:11–64

    Google Scholar 

  • Ecker A (1851–1859) Icones physiologicae. Erläuterungstafeln zur Physiologie und Entwickelungsgeschichte. Leopold Voss, Leipzig

  • Farley J (1982) Gametes and spores: ideas about sexual reproduction. The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore

    Google Scholar 

  • Flemming W (1880) Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Zelle und ihrer Lebenserscheinungen. Arch Mikrosk Anat 18:151–259

    Google Scholar 

  • Fry I (2000) The emergence of life on Earth. A historical and scientific overview. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick

    Google Scholar 

  • Galvani L (1791) De viribus electricitatis in motu musculari.Commentarius. Ex Typographia Instituti Scientiarum, Bononiae

    Google Scholar 

  • Gasco F (1880) Gli amori del Tritone alpestre (Triton alpestris, Laur.) e la deposizione delle sue uova. Annali del Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Genova 16:5–58

    Google Scholar 

  • Grassi GB (1911) I progressi della biologia e delle sue applicazioni pratiche conseguiti in Italia nell’ultimo cinquantennio. Tipografia della R. Accademia dei Lincei, Roma

    Google Scholar 

  • Groeben C (1993) Karl Ernst von Baer [1792–1876] Anton Dohrn [1840–1909] Correspondence (trans. Groeben C, Oppenheimer JM). Trans Am Philos Soc 83(3):1–156

    Google Scholar 

  • Gurdon JB, Elsdale TB, Fischberg M (1958) Sexually mature individuals of Xenopus laevis from the transplantation of single somatic nuclei. Nature 182:64–65

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Harris H (2000) The birth of the cell. Yale University Press, New Haven

    Google Scholar 

  • Hertwig O (1884) Das Problem der Befruchtung und der Isotrophie des Eies. Eine Theorie der Vererbung. Jenaische Zeitschrift für Naturwissenschaft 18:276–318

    Google Scholar 

  • Ivanova-Kazas OM (1992) Baer’s law of ontogenic divergence. Ontogenez (Russ J Dev Biol) 23:175–179 (in Russian)

    Google Scholar 

  • Jacob F (1970) La logique du vivant. Une histoire de l’hérédité. Gallimard, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Kalt MR (1971) The relationship between cleavage and blastocoel formation in Xenopus laevis. J Embryol Exp Morphol 26:37–49

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kolchinsky E, Levit GS (2019) The reception of Haeckel in pre-revolutionary Russia and his impact on evolutionary theory. Theory Biosci 138:73–88

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kopsch F (1895a) Die Zellenbewegungen während des Gastrulationsprocesses an der Eiern vom Axolotl und vom brauen Grasfrosch. Sitz ber Gesell Naturforsch Freunde zu Berlin 1895:21–30

    Google Scholar 

  • Kopsch F (1895b) Beiträge zur Gastrulation beim Axolotl- und Froschei. Verhandl Anat Gesell Basel 8:181–189

    Google Scholar 

  • Lagunoff D (2002) A Polish, Jewish scientist in 19th-century Prussia. Science 298:2331

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lamarck J-B (1809) Philosophie zoologique, vol 2. Dentu, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Lenoir T (1982) The strategy of life. Teleology and mechanics in nineteenth-century German biology. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago

    Google Scholar 

  • Lillie FR (1908) The development of the chick. An introduction to embryology. Henry Holt and Company, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Maienschein J (2005) Whose view of life? Embryos, cloning, and stem cells. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Mazzarello P (1999) A unifying concept: the history of cell theory. Nat Cell Biol 1:E13–E15

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Meyer AW (1956) Human generation. Conclusions of Burdach, Döllinger and von Baer. Stanford University Press, Stanford

    Google Scholar 

  • Mikhailov AT (1997) Epigenesis versus preformation: first chapter of the Russian embryological research. Int J Dev Biol 41:755–762

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Mikhailov AT (2012) Russian comparative embryology takes form: a conceptual metamorphosis toward „ evo-devo“. Ev Dev 14:9–19

    Google Scholar 

  • Morgan TH (1897) The development of the frog’s egg. An introduction to experimental embryology. The Macmillan Company, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Nägeli C (1842) Zur Entwickelungsgeschichte des Pollens bei den Phanerogamen. Ovell and Füssli, Zürich

    Google Scholar 

  • Oppenheimer JM (1990) Science and nationality: the case of Karl Ernst von Baer (1792–1876). Proc Am Philos Soc 134:75–82

    Google Scholar 

  • Ospovat D (1981) The development of Darwin’s theory. Natural history, natural theology, and natural selection, 1838–1859. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Pander CH (1817a) Dissertatio inauguralis sistens historiam metamorphoseos, quam ovum incubatum prioribus quinque diebus subit. Typis Francisci Ernesti Nitribitt. Universitatis Typographi, Wirceburgi

    Google Scholar 

  • Pander CH (1817b) Beiträge zur Entwickelungsgeschichte des Hünchens im Eye. Würzburg

  • Prévost JL (1826) De la génération chez la Moule de peintres (Unio Pictorum). Ann Sci Nat 7:447–455

    Google Scholar 

  • Prévost JL, Dumas JB (1824a) Nouvelle théorie de la génération. Ann Sci Nat 1:1–28

    Google Scholar 

  • Prévost JL, Dumas JB (1824b) Deuxième mémoire sur la génération. Rapports de l’oeuf avec la liqueur fécondante. Phénomènes appréciables, résultant de leur action mutuelle. Développement de l’oeuf des Batraciens. Ann Sci Nat 2: 100–121, 129–149

    Google Scholar 

  • Prévost JL, Dumas JB (1824c) Troisième mémoire. De la génération dans les Mammifères, et les premiers indices de développement de l’embryon. Ann Sci Nat 3:113–138

    Google Scholar 

  • Prévost JL, Dumas JB (1827) Mémoire sur le développement du poulet dans l’oeuf. Ann Sci Nat 12:415–451

    Google Scholar 

  • Purkinje JE (1825) Fried., Blumenbachio, eq. Guelf., viro de omni scientia naturali uni omnium maxime merito, universitatis Georgiae Augustae decori eximio, die 19 Sept. 1825 summorum in medicina honorum semisaecularia faustis omnibus celebranti, gratulatur ordo medicorum Vratislavensium, interprete J. Ev. Purkynĕ. Subjectae sunt Symbolae ad ovi avium historiam ante incubationem. Typis universitatis, Vratislaviae

  • Purkinje JE (1830) Symbolae ad ovi avium historiam ante incubationem. Sumptibus Leopoldi Vossii, Lipsiae

    Google Scholar 

  • Raineri M (2009) On some historical and theoretical foundations of the concept of chordates. Theory Biosci 128:53–73

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Raineri M, Tammiksaar E (2013) The first experiments on ascidian and sea urchin eggs fertilization. In: Pontarotti P (ed) Evolutionary biology: exobiology and evolutionary mechanisms. Springer, Berlin, pp 3–17

    Google Scholar 

  • Rathke MH (1825) Resultate der Untersuchungen über die Entwickelung des Flusskrebses. Isis 10:1093–1100

    Google Scholar 

  • Rathke MH (1829) Untersuchungen ueber die Bildung und Entwickelung des Flusskrebses. Voss, Leipzig

    Google Scholar 

  • Remak R (1852) Ueber extracellulare Entstehung thierischer Zellen und über Vermehrung derselben durch Theilung. Arch Anat Phys Wiss Med 47:47–57

    Google Scholar 

  • Remak R (1855) Untersuchungen über die Entwickelung der Wirbelthiere. Reimer, Berlin

    Google Scholar 

  • Ribatti D (2018) An historical note on the cell theory. Exp Cell Res 364:1–4

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Roe S (1981) Matter, life, and generation: eighteenth-century embryology and the Haller-Wolff debate. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Roger J (1963) Les sciences de la vie dans le pensée française du XVIIIe siècle. La génération des animaux de Descartes à l’ Encyclopédie. Colin, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Rusconi M (1817) Descrizione anatomica degli organi della circolazione delle larve delle salamandre acquatiche. Lettera al dott. G.B. Brocchi. Fusi, Pavia

    Google Scholar 

  • Rusconi M (1819) Del Proteo anguino di Laurenti (in collaborazione con Pietro Configliachi). Fusi, Pavia

    Google Scholar 

  • Rusconi M (1821) Amours des salamandres aquatiques et développement du tétard. Giusti, Milano

    Google Scholar 

  • Rusconi M (1826) Développement de la grenouille comune depuis le moment de sa naissance jusque a son état parfait. Giusti, Milano

    Google Scholar 

  • Rusconi M (1835a) Lettera del Dott. Mauro Rusconi al Sig. Enrico Weber, Prof. di anatomia, in cui si risponde ad alcune critiche osservazioni state fatte dal Prof. Baer etc. Annali Universali di Medicina 73:447–459

    Google Scholar 

  • Rusconi M (1835b) Lettera seconda del dottore Mauro Rusconi al signor Ernesto E. Weber, professore d’anatomia nell’Università di Lipsia, in cui si risponde ad alcune critiche osservazioni state fatte dal prof. Baer etc. Bibl Ital 78:363–381

    Google Scholar 

  • Rusconi M (1835c) Lettera terza del dott. Mauro Rusconi al signor Ernesto H. Weber, professore di notomia nell’Università di Lipsia. Sopra la fecondazione artificiale ne’ pesci, e sopra le metamorfosi a cui soggiacciono l’uova de’ pesci innanzi di prender forma di embrione. Bibl Ital 79:250–257

    Google Scholar 

  • Rusconi M (1838) Lettera quarta del Dottor Mauro Rusconi al signor Ernesto H. Weber professore di Notomia nell’Università di Lipsia. Sopra la fecondazione artificiale ne’ pesci e sopra alcune nuove esperienze intorno alla fecondazione artificiale nelle rane. Giornale delle scienze medico-chirurgiche 9:341–350

    Google Scholar 

  • Rusconi M (1839) Lettera del dott. Rusconi al sig. Ernesto H. Weber intorno alla vescichetta del germe. Bibl Ital 95:363–365

    Google Scholar 

  • Rusconi M (1854) Histoire naturelle, développement et métamorphose de la salamandre terrestre. Ouvrage posthume inédit publié par le docteur Joseph Morganti. Bizzoni, Pavia

    Google Scholar 

  • Schleiden MJ (1842) Grundzüge der wissenschaftlichen Botanik nebst einer methodologischen Einleitung als Anleitung zum Studium der Pflanze. Engelmann, Leipzig

    Google Scholar 

  • Schwann T (1839) [1847] Mikroskopische Untersuchungen über die Übereinstimmung in der Struktur und dem Wachstum der Thiere und Pflanzen. Sander’schen Buchhandlung, Berlin (trans. Smith H, Microscopical researches into the accordance in the structure and growth of animals and plants. Printed for the Syndenham Society, London)

  • Serres É (1827) Recherches d’anatomie transcendante, sur les lois de l’organogénie appliquées à l’anatomie pathologique. Ann Sci Nat 11:47–70

    Google Scholar 

  • Spallanzani L (1768) Prodromo di un’opera da imprimersi sopra le riproduzioni animali. Giovanni Montanari, Modena

    Google Scholar 

  • Spallanzani L (1776–1779) [1984] Edizione nazionale delle opere e dei carteggi. Vol III, 2° suppl. i Pietro P ed. Mucchi, Modena

  • Spallanzani L (1779) Fecondazione artificiale. In: Prodromo della nuova enciclopedia italiana. Vincenzo Pazzini Carli e Figli, e Luigi e Benedetto Bindi, Siena, pp 129–134

  • Spallanzani L (1780) Dissertazioni di fisica animale, e vegetabile. Società Tipografica, Modena

    Google Scholar 

  • Spemann H (1936) Experimentelle Beiträge zu einer Theorie der Entwicklung. Springer, Berlin

    Google Scholar 

  • Spemann H (1938) Embryonic development and induction. Yale University Press, New Haven

    Google Scholar 

  • Stieda L (1878) Karl Ernst von Baer. Eine biographische Skizze. Druck und Verlag von Friedrich Vieweg und Sohn, Braunschweig

    Google Scholar 

  • Stölzle R (1897) Karl Ernst von Baer und seine Weltanschauung. Nationale Verlagsanstalt, Regensburg

    Google Scholar 

  • Tammiksaar E (2002) The contributions of Karl Ernst von Baer to the investigation of the physical geography of the Arctic in the 1830s–1840s. Polar Rec 38:121–140

    Google Scholar 

  • Tammiksaar E, Brauckmann S (2004) Karl Ernst von Baer’s ‘Über Entwickelungsgeschichte der Thiere II’ and its unpublished drawings. Hist Phil Life Sci 26:291–308

    Google Scholar 

  • Tammiksaar E, Kalling K (2018) ‘I was stealing some skulls from the bone chamber when a bigamist cleric stopped me’. Karl Ernst von Baer and the development of physical anthropology in Europe. Centaurus 60(4):276–293

    Google Scholar 

  • van Bambeke CEM (1867) Recherches sur le développement du Pélobate brun (Pelobates fuscus, Wagl.). Mém couron sav étr Acad Roy Belg 34:1–66

    Google Scholar 

  • Verga A (1869) Sulla vita e sugli scritti di Bartolomeo Panizza. Bernardoni, Milano

    Google Scholar 

  • Vienne F (2015) Seeking the constant in what is transient: Karl Ernst von Baer’s vision of organic formation. Hist Philos Life Sci 37:34–49

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Virchow R (1852) Ernährungseinheiten und Krankheitsheerde. Arch pathol Anat Physiol klin Med 4:375–399

    Google Scholar 

  • Virchow R (1855) Cellular-Pathologie. Arch pathol Anat Physiol klin Med 8:3–39

    Google Scholar 

  • von Baer KE (1824) Vorlesungen über Anthropologie, für den Selbstunterricht bearbaitet. Gebrüder Bornträger, Königsberg

    Google Scholar 

  • von Baer KE (1827a) De ovi mammalium et hominis genesi. Epistolam ad Academiam Imperialem Scientiarum Petropolitanam. Sumptibus Leopoldi Vossii, Lipsiae

    Google Scholar 

  • von Baer KE (1827b) Beiträge zur Kenntniss der niederen Tiere. Verhandlungen der kaiserlichen Leopoldinisch Carolinischen Akademie der Naturforscher 13:558–659

    Google Scholar 

  • von Baer KE (1828) Über Entwickelungsgeschichte der Thiere. Beobachtung und Reflexion, vol I. Borntraeger, Königsberg

    Google Scholar 

  • von Baer KE (1834) Die Metamorphose des Eies der Batrachier vor der Erscheinung des Embryo und Folgerungen aus ihr für die Theorie der Erzeugung. Arch Anat Phys wiss Med 6:481–509

    Google Scholar 

  • von Baer KE (1837) Über Entwickelungsgeschichte der Thiere. Beobachtung und Reflexion, vol II. Borntraeger, Königsberg

    Google Scholar 

  • von Baer KE (1847) Auszug aus einem Berichte des Akademikers v. Baer, aus Triest vom 1. (13.) November 1845. Bull Classe Phys-Math Acad Imp Sci St. Pétersbourg 5: 231–240

    Google Scholar 

  • von Baer KE (1866) [1986] Nachrichten über Leben und Schriften des Herrn Geheimrathes R. Karl Ernst von Baer, mitgetheilt von ihm selbst. Buchdruckerei der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften St. Petersburg (trans. Schneider H, Autobiography of Dr. Karl Ernst von Baer, Science History Publications, Watson Publishing International, Canton, MS, USA)

  • von Baer KE (1873) Entwickelt sich die Larve der einfachen Ascidien in der ersten Zeit nach dem Typus der Wirbelthiere? Mém Acad Imp Sci St. Pétersbourg Ser VII 19:1–35

    Google Scholar 

  • von Haller A (1757) Elementa physiologiae corporis humani. Sumptibus Societatis Typographicae, Lausanne

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolff CF (1768–1769) De formatione intestinorum praecipue, tum et de amnio spurio, aliisque partibus embryonis gallinacei, nondum visis, observationes, in ovis incubatis institutae. Novi Commentarii Acad Imp Sci Petrop 12:403–507; 13:478–530

  • Wolpert L (1995) Evolution of the cell theory. Phil Trans R Soc Lond B 349:227–233

    CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Dr. Edoardo Razzetti (Natural History Museum, Pavia) for providing us with Rusconi’s 1826 and 1854 books as well as biographical information. Dr. Alberto Vianelli and Dr. Paolo Musso (University of Insubria, Italy) gave us bibliographic material on the history of the cell theory. We also thank the referees for their valuable comments which helped us to improve the manuscript.

Funding

Estonian Ministry of Education, Grant Numbers: P170021SPTL and P180276SPTL.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Science Studies, Estonian University of Life Sciences, Veski St. 4, 51005, Tartu, Estonia

    Margherita Raineri & Erki Tammiksaar

  2. Via Galata 20/10, 16121, Genoa, Italy

    Margherita Raineri

Authors
  1. Margherita Raineri
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Erki Tammiksaar
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Margherita Raineri.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Raineri, M., Tammiksaar, E. Scientific traditions in conflict: the Rusconi–von Baer controversy on the embryology of frogs and the development of the cell theory. Theory Biosci. 140, 45–75 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12064-020-00325-3

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12064-020-00325-3

Keywords

  • Cell theory
  • Embryology
  • Preformation
  • Mechanism
  • Epigenesis
  • Individuality