On so-called spontaneous generation / by Benjamin T. Lowne.
- Benjamin Thompson Lowne
- Date:
- 1870
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On so-called spontaneous generation / by Benjamin T. Lowne. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![bodies. Any one of tliose bodies, if placed under favourable condi- tions, will produce a perfect plant, similar to its parent. You may say tliat these bodies have inherited the potentiality to do so, but this is not all, for every plant thus produced, in like manner de- Velopes on its stalks and leaves myriads of similar bodies, endowed with the same property of becoming new plants ; and so on, appar- ently interminably. Therefore the original cell that left the grand parent, not only carried with it this so called potentiality, but multi])lied it and distributed it with undiminished power through the other cells of the 23lant produced by itself; and so on, for countless generations. What is this potentiality, and how is this power to reproduce thus propagated, so that an organism can, by single cells, multiply itself so rapidly, and within very narrow limits, so surely and so interminably ? Mr. Darwin suggests an explanation, by assuming that each cell or fragment of a plant (or animal) contains myriads of atoms or gemmules, each of which gemmules he supposes to have been thrown off from the separate cells of the mother-plant, the gemmules having the power of mul- tiplication, and of circulating throughout the plant: their future development he supposes to depend on their affinity for other par- tially developed cells in due order of succession. Gemmules which do not become developed, may, according to his hypothesis, be transmitted through many succeeding generations, thus enabling us to understand many remarkable cases of reversion or atavism. Hence, the normal organs of the body have not only the represen- tative elements of which they consist diffused through all the other parts of the body, but the morbid states of these, as hereditary diseases, malformations, &c., all actually circulate in the body as morbid gemmules. “ As with other hypotheses based on the assumed existence of structures and elements that escape our senses, by reason of their minuteness or subtlety, this of Pangenesis will approve itself to some minds and not to others. To some these inconceivably minute circulating gemmules will be as apparent to the mind’s eye as the stars of which the milky way is composed : others will prefer em- bodying the idea in such a term as potentiality, a term which con- veys no definite impression whatever, and they will like it none the less on this account. “Whatever be the scientific value of these gemmules, there is no question but that to Mr. Darwin’s enunciation of the doctrine of](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22330835_0005.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
