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 branch 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. [Sidenote: 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. [Sidenote: 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). [Sidenote: 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. [Sidenote: 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). [Sidenote: 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 _general_ 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 Thomson, 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