Isolation and Transplantation Experiments

Abstract

The story of experimental embryology begins with attempts to study the development of single early cleavage cells. Blastomeres of ascidian eggs were killed by CHABRY (1887) and ROUX (1888) killed blastomeres of amphibian eggs by pricking them with a needle and the behaviour of their living partners was followed. ROUX has been called the father of experimental embryology (Entwicklungsmechanik). A few years later, DRIESCH (1891) and FIEDLER (1891) isolated blastomeres of 2-cell stages of sea urchin eggs by shaking. Later, it was discovered by HERBST that isolation is facilitated by lack of calcium ions in seawater which loosens the contact between cleavage cells (1900). A flow of papers in the decades at the turn of the century by Theodor BOVERI, Hans DRIESCH, Curt HERBST, Thomas Hunt MORGAN, and others, gave the sea urchin egg a position as one of the foremost objects for developmental physiology, a position held ever since.