Page:Life and death (1911).djvu/220

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

crustaceæ; and finally in the destruction and the neo-formation of the globules of the blood of vertebrates, of the glandular cells, and of the epithelial cells of the intestine.

Accidental Regeneration in Protozoa and Plastids.—There is also an accidental regeneration which more or less perfectly renews the parts that are lost. This regeneration has its degrees, from the simple cicatrization of a wound to the complete reproduction of the part cut off. It is very unequally developed in zoological groups even when they are connected. In the elementary monocellular beings—i.e., in the anatomical elements and in the protozoa,—the experiments in merotomy, i.e., in partial section, enable us to appreciate the extent of this faculty of regeneration. These experiments, inaugurated by the researches of Augustus Waller in 1851, were repeated by Gruber in 1885, continued by Nussbaum in 1886, Balbiani in 1889, Verworn in 1891, and have been reproduced by a large number of observers. They have shown that the two fragments cicatrize, and are repaired, building up an organism externally similar to the primitive organism, but smaller. The two new organic units do not, however, behave in the same way. That which retains the nucleus possesses the faculty of regeneration, and of living as the primitive being lived. The protoplasmic fragment, which does not contain the nucleus, cannot rebuild this absent organ; and though it has functional activity in most respects, just as the nucleated fragment, yet it is distinguished from it in others of great importance. The anucleated fragment of an infusorian behaves as the nucleated, and as the whole animal so far as the movements of the body, the cilia, prehension of food,