Unpublished paper, 'On the supposed development of the animal tissues from cells' by James Stark

Description

Stark controverts the prevailing theory of the developement of animal tissues from cells, and denies the accuracy of the microscopical observations on which that theory is founded, as regards the anatomy of the adult as well as of the foetal tissues. He asserts that at no period of foetal life can rows of cells be discovered in the act of transformation into muscular fibres, and he denies that these fibres increase either in length or in thickness by the deposition of new cells. He contends that the ultimate filaments of muscles, as well as all the other tissues of the body, are formed from the fibrinous portion of the blood, which is itself composed of globules that are disposed to cohere together, either in a linear series, so as to form a network of fine filaments, or in aggregated masses of a form more or less globular, composing what have been termed fibrinous corpuscles. These corpuscles have been considered to be the nuclei of cells, but Stark regards them as being merely accidental fragments of broken down tissues, adhering to the filaments, and not concerned in their developement. The more regularly disposed granules, which are observed to occupy the spaces intervening between the filaments composing the ordinary cellular tissue, he considers as being fatty matter deposited within these spaces. He, in like manner, regards the observations tending to show the cellular origin of the fibrous, cartilaginous, and osseous tissues, as altogether fallacious. Stark maintains that the cells, which these animal textures exhibit when viewed under the microscope, are simply spaces occurring in the more solid substance of these structures, like the cavities which exist in bread. These views are pursued by Stark in discussing the formation of the skin, the blood-vessels, and the nerves, and in controverting the theory of secretion, founded on the action of the interior surfaces of the membranes constituting cells.

Includes seven figures within the text.

Subject: Biology / Cytology

Received 7 March 1843. Communicated by James F W [Finlay Weir] Johnston.

Whilst the Royal Society declined to publish this paper in full, an abstract of the paper was published in volume 4 of Abstracts of the Papers Printed in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London [later Proceedings of the Royal Society] as 'On the supposed development of the animal tissues from cells'.

Reference number

AP/26/16

Earliest possible date

24 February 1843

Physical description

Ink on paper

Page extent

79 pages

Format

Drawing
Manuscript