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.

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.

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).

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.

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).

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