Part 2 — CHAPTER LVII BIOLOGY GENERAL AND INTRODUCTORY

The Britannica tells us that Sir Thomas Browne, the famous 17th century physician and author, once ventured to doubt “whether mice may be bred by putrefaction,” and Alexander Ross, the poet scientist of 200 years ago, commenting on his scepticism wrote, “So may he doubt whether in cheese and timber worms are generated; or if beetles and wasps in cows’ dung; or if butterflies, locusts, grasshoppers, shell-fish, snails, eels, and such like, be procreated of putrefied matter, which is apt to receive the form of that creature to which it is by formative power disposed. To question this is to question reason, sense and experience. If he doubts of this let him go to Egypt, and there he will find the fields swarming with mice, begot of the mud of Nylus, to the great calamity of the inhabitants” (Vol. 1, p. 64). To-day science gives no offhand answer to the question of the origin of life. Abiogenesis, or “spontaneous generation,” so-called, finds a far less simple definition and research still in vain bends its best energies to solving this problem of problems.

The subject is so vast, dealing as it does with all the phenomena manifested by living matter, that in this Guide that 345branch of the subject which studies the human organism is separately dealt with in the chapter Health and Disease. This chapter, therefore, is confined to the still enormous subject of biology considered as dealing with the general problem of life; botany and zoology are treated in the following chapters. The student of either of the two last subjects should preface, or at least supplement, his studies, by reading the main general articles included below.

The Study of Life

The guiding article Biology (Vol. 3, p. 954), which should be read first, serves as a key to the discussion of the biological sciences. It is not long, for the main divisions of the subject are treated more conveniently and logically under their own appropriate headings. P. Chalmers Mitchell, secretary of the Zoological Society of London, who organized the whole subject for the new Britannica, is the contributor. Supplementing this, the article Life (Vol. 16, p. 600), also by Chalmers Mitchell, should be read, with those on Protoplasm (Vol. 22, p. 476), Species (Vol. 25, p. 616), Abiogenesis (Vol. 1, p. 64), Biogenesis (Vol. 3, p. 952). In the two articles last named the theory of spontaneous generation is examined and found wanting, or at best unproved.

Structure

Living matter may be regarded under four aspects: structure, distribution, physiology, evolution. For the first, the article Morphology (Vol. 18, p. 863) leads the discussion, followed by Cytology (Vol. 7, p. 710), and Embryology (Vol. 9, p. 314), in which the growth of cell structures is discussed. These articles are introductory to the whole subject. Supplementing them reference may be made to the Morphology sections of the articles Plant (Vol. 21, p. 728) and Zoology (Vol. 28, p. 1022).

Distribution

A most fascinating branch is that which is concerned with the where and when of the existence of organisms. The articles in the Britannica are worthy of the interest of the subject. Under Palaeontology (Vol. 20, p. 579) H. F. Osborn, Columbia University, New York, president of the American Museum of Natural History, New York, treats of the archaeology of the biological sciences, of the extinct species which once inhabited the earth; while Clement Reid, of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, A. C. Seward, professor of botany, Cambridge University, and Dr. D. H. Scott, president of the Linnean Society, perform the same service for plant life in the article Palaeobotany (Vol. 20, p. 524). The distribution of present types is discussed under Zoological Distribution (Vol. 28, p. 1002), Plants, Distribution (Vol. 21, p. 777), and Plankton (Vol. 21, p. 720), in which Prof. G. H. Fowler of University College, London, describes a science which is still young—that of tracing the drift and distribution of deep sea life. See also Acclimatization (Vol. 1, p. 114), by Alfred Russel Wallace and Frank Finn, of the Indian Museum of Calcutta.

Physiology

The properties, processes, and functions of living things fall in the province of Physiology (Vol. 21, p. 554), and kindred articles; among the latter the following may profitably be consulted: Animal Heat (Vol. 2, p. 48), and Plants, Physiology (Vol. 21, p. 744).

Evolution

The gradual development of species is considered in a number of valuable articles such as Evolution (Vol. 10, p. 22), Heredity (Vol. 13, p. 350), Reproduction (Vol. 23, p. 116), Mendelism (Vol. 18, p. 115), Telegony (Vol. 25, p. 509), Variation and Selection (Vol. 27, p. 906).

Following is an alphabetical list of the 346general biological articles (those not dealing directly with either Botany or Zoology), which are to be found in the Britannica:

Abiogenesis

Acclimatization

Acephalous

Acuminate

Adaptation

Aestivation

Albino

Alveolate

Anabolism

Anastomosis

Aporose

Auricle

Autogeny

Bathybius

Biogenesis

Biology

Bipartite

Catabolism

Chemotaxis

Cilia

Cytology

Embryology

Enzyme

Evolution

Fermentation

Habitat

Heredity

Hibernaculum

Histology

Hybridism

Life

Longevity

Mendelism

Metabolism

Microtomy

Monotypic

Morphology

Oecology, or Ecology

Osteology

Parasitism

Protoplasm

Reproduction

Rhacis, or Rachis

Species

Telegony

Variation and Selection

BIOGRAPHIES OF BIOLOGISTS

The life and work of the world’s great biologists may be studied in the Britannica, and an alphabetical list of the principal articles follows.

Acharius, Erik

Adams, A. L.

Adanson, Michel

Afzelius, Adam

Agassiz, A. E.

Agassiz, J. L. R.

Aiton, William

Albinus (Weiss), B. S.

Aldrovandi, Ulissi

Allman, George James

Alpini, Prospero

Alston, Charles

Ambrosini, Bartolomeo

Anderson, James

Arrenotokous, A.

Artedi, Peter

Audebert, J. B.

Audouin, Jean Victor

Audubon, John James

Avebury, J. Lubbock, Baron

Baer, Karl Ernst von

Baird, S. F.

Balfour, F. M.

Banks, Sir Joseph

Barton, B. S.

Bates, Henry Walter

Bauhin, Gaspard

Belon, Pierre

Bentham, George

Berkeley, M. J.

Blainville, H. M. Ducrotay de

Bloch, Mark Eliezer

Blumenbach, J. F.

Bonpland, A. J. A.

Bory de Saint-Vincent, J. B. G. M.

Bose, L. A. G.

Brisson, M. J.

Broderip, W. J.

Brongniart, A. T.

Broussonet, P. M. A.

Brown, Robert

Buckland, F. T.

Buffon, G. L. L. de

Caesalpinus, Andreas

Camerarius, Joachim

Camerarius, R. J.

Camper, Peter

Candolle, A. P. de

Carpenter, W. B.

Cavanilles, A. J.

Claparède, J. L. R. A. E.

Cobbold, T. S.

Cohn, Ferdinand Julius

Combe, George

Coues, E.

Cuvier, Baron

Darwin, Charles R.

Darwin, Erasmus

Daubenton, L. J. M.

De Bary, H. A.

Desfontaines, R. L.

Dillen (Dillenius), J. J.

Donovan, Edward

Dryander, Jonas

Duhamel de Monceau

Dutrochet, R. J. H.

Edwards, George

Eschscholtz, J. F.

Fabricius, J. C.

Falconer, Hugh

Flourens, M. J. P.

Flower, Sir William H.

Forbes, Edward

Forskal, Peter

Fortune, Robert

Fraas, Karl Nikolas

Fries, Elias Magnus

Fuchs, Leonard

Gall, Franz Joseph

Gaudichaud-Beaupré

Gegenbaur, Carl

Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, E.

Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, I.

Gerard, John

Gervais, Paul

Gesner, K. von

Gosse, Philip Henry

Gould, A. A.

Gray, Asa

Gray, John Edward

Grew, Nehemiah

Haeckel, E. H.

Hagenbeck, Carl

Hales, Stephen

Hasselquist, Frederik

Hofmeister, W. F. B.

Hooker, Sir Joseph D.

Hooker, Sir William J.

Huber, François

Huxley, T. H.

Hyatt, Alpheus

Jäger, Gustav

Jesse, Edward

Jussieu, De (family)

Kaup, Johann Jakob

Kirby, William

Kölliker, R. A. von

Kühne, Willy

Lacépède, B. G. E. de La Ville, comte de

Lamarck

Latreille, P. A.

Lawes, Sir John B.

Leeuwenhoek, A. van

Leidy, Joseph

Lindley, John

Linnaeus

Lombroso, Cesare

Ludwig, K. F. W.

Macgillivray, W. and J.

Malpighi, Marcello

Marsh, O. C.

Martius, C. F. P. von

Martyn, John

Michaux, André

Milne-Edwards, Henry

Mivart, St. George J.

Mohl, Hugo von

Morgagni, G. B.

Müller, F. von, baron

Müller, J. P.

Naegeli, K. W. van

Nees von Esenbeck

Newton, Alfred

North, Marianne

Nuttall, Thomas

Oken, Lorenz

Ormerod, Eleanor A.

Owen, Sir Richard

Pennant, Thomas

Pringsheim, Nathanael

Quatrefages de Bréau

Ray (or Wray), John

Réaumur, R. A. F. de

Richardson, Sir John

Romanes, G. J.

Royle, John Forbes

Sachs, Julius von

Saint-Hilaire, A. de

Saussure, N. T. de

Schleiden, M. J.

Schultze, M. J. S.

Schwann, Theodor

Senebier, Jean

Sibthorp, John

Siebold, C. T. E. vo

Sowerby, James

Spallanzani, Lazaro

Sprengel, Kurt

Spurzheim, J. C.

Swammerdam, Jan

Swartz, Olof

347Thomson, Sir C. W.

Thunberg, K. P.

Thuret, G. A.

Tiedemann, Friedrich

Torrey, John

Tournefort, J. P. de

Treviranus, G. R.

Tylor, E. B.

Virchow, Rudolf

Wagner, Rudolph

Wallace, A. Russel

Waterton, Charles

Weismann, August

White, Gilbert

Williamson, W. C.

Willughby, Francis

Wilson, Alexander

Wolff, C. F.

Wood, John George

Yarrell, William