Renewed inquiries concerning the spiral structure of muscle, with observations on the muscularity of cilia / by Martin Barry, M.D.

  • Martin Barry
Date:
[1852]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Renewed inquiries concerning the spiral structure of muscle, with observations on the muscularity of cilia / by Martin Barry, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    sarcolemma. Such future spirals in a far later stage are seen in fig. 21 j and fig. 33, a, b, c, shdWs tte way in which the cell- genns perpetuate themselves by division and subdivision, every spiral having within its winds the elements of reproduction, fig. 33; and the primitive fasciculus being often found to have preserved cell-germs for a more general pui'pose in a central liije, fig. 31. The reproduction of muscle, when fully formed, is probably no other than a continuation of its history of deve- lopment, and has been already illustrated in fig. 6. By self- division of its hyaline axis of cell-germs, every fibril may become converted into a primitive fasciculus. The laws of development in general are best studied in the ovum; and he who holds the wondrous process of cell-formation in the germinal vesicle, i. e. the histoiy of development of the germinal spot described by the author in the Philosophical Trans- actions for 1840 as undesei-ving of particular attention, may spare himself the trouble of inquiring into the history of deve- lopment of muscle, or that of any other tissue, as his labour would be throwTi away. In that development of the germinal spot, the hyaline in the centre of the spot is obviously the prime mover. It is the hyaline in the centre of the germinal spot that is the substance undergoing fecundation; and no doubt it is the hyaline seen in the head-like extremity of the spermatozoon that is the real fecundating substance. (The author once saw, and figured in the Philosophical Transactions for 1840, what ap- peared to him to be a spermatozoon in the very act of entering the ovum of the rabbit; its head having already penetrated an orifice discernible for a time in the zona pellucida*.) In the * He mentions having repeatedly found unaltered spermatozoa in the interior of the ovum in its next stages, after it had passed into the Fallo- ])ian tube; and having had the opportunity of showing them to Pi'ofessor Owen, who declared himself fully convinced of the presence of the sperma- tozoa uithin the ovum. Once the author counted as many as seven in a single ovum. (A drawing of that ovum will be found in a paper by him On Fissiparous Generation, in the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, October 18-43.) In all instances the spermatozoa were motionless; and not among the cells in which the development of the essential substance was proceeding, but in the colourless fluid between those cells and in the zona pellucida. [While passing through London in May 1852, the author learns that after the lapse of many years these observations have been in two quarters confirmed by others; Dr. Nelson having presented to the Royal Society a paper announcing the presence of sj)crmatozoa in the in- terior of the ovum of a creature at the other end of the animal kingdom, Ascaris mijstax; and Mr. Newport having added a postscript to a paper of his on the ovum of the frog, also presented to the Royal Society, in which he candidly acknowledges having erred when, in a former niemon-, he ques- tioned the accuracy of the discovery made by the author of the present paper, that entire sj)ermatozoa do actually make their way into the mtcrior of the ovum.]