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A work in progress: William Bateson’s vibratory theory of repetition of parts

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Abstract

In 1891 Cambridge biologist William Bateson (1861–1926) announced his idea that the symmetrical segmentation in living organisms resulted from energy peaks of some vibratory force acting on tissues during morphogenesis. He also demonstrated topographically how folding a radially symmetric organism could produce another with bilateral symmetry. Bateson attended many lectures at the Cambridge Philosophical Society and viewed mechanical models prepared by eminent physicists that illustrated how vibrations affected materials. In his subsequent research, Bateson utilized analogies and metaphors based upon his observations of nature to build a thought model on the effects of vibrations on living tissue, because he realized that the chemistry and biology of his day lacked technologies to perform actual experiments on the subject. He concluded the production of organic segmentation was both a chemical and mechanical phenomenon. By the time of his death Bateson had incorporated new ideas about embryonic organizer regions to suggest a center from which a rhythmic force emanated and then produced the observed repetitive segmentation as a common feature in living organisms.

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Notes

  1. Darwin and D. F. M. Pertz were initiating their own study of rhythm in plants, which may have encouraged Bateson to develop his thoughts about bio-rhythms in animals (Darwin & Pertz, 1891, 1892).

  2. No one appears to have cited this work during his lifetime.

  3. The Clarendon Press usually published the Boyle Lecture shortly after its presentation (Heaton, 1909). Bateson noted to his wife a year later that he was “getting the Boyle Lecture into shape,” and the “Oxford lecture was done after a fashion,” suggesting that he never completed a manuscript for publication” (Bateson, 1910a).

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to Sarah Wilmot from the Bateson Archive at the John Innes Centre in Norwich for assistance with unpublished material.

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  1. Department of Pediatrics, Hunterdon Medical Center, Flemington, NJ, 08822, USA

    Alan R. Rushton

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Rushton, A.R. A work in progress: William Bateson’s vibratory theory of repetition of parts. HPLS 46, 11 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40656-024-00608-8

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