The Story of the Living Machine

Story of the Living Machine, The

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Title: The Story of the Living Machine A Review of the Conclusions of Modern Biology in Regard to the Mechanism Which Controls the Phenomena of Living Activity
Author: H. W. Conn
Release Date: August 8, 2005 [EBook #16487]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE STORY OF THE LIVING MACHINE
A REVIEW OF THE CONCLUSIONS OF MODERN BIOLOGY IN REGARD TO THE MECHANISM WHICH CONTROLS THE PHENOMENA OF LIVING ACTIVITY
BY
H.W. CONN
PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGY IN WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY
AUTHOR OF THE STORY OF GERM LIFE, EVOLUTION OF TO-DAY, THE LIVING WORLD, ETC.
WITH FIFTY ILLUSTRATIONS NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1903
COPYRIGHT, 1899, By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.

PREFACE.
That the living body is a machine is a statement that is frequently made without any very accurate idea as to what it means. On the one hand it is made with a belief that a strict comparison can be made between the body and an ordinary, artificial machine, and that living beings are thus reduced to simple mechanisms; on the other hand it is made loosely, without any special thought as to its significance, and certainly with no conception that it reduces life to a mechanism. The conclusion that the living body is a machine, involving as it does a mechanical conception of life, is one of most extreme philosophical importance, and no one interested in the philosophical conception of nature can fail to have an interest in this problem of the strict accuracy of the statement that the body is a machine. Doubtless the complete story of the living machine can not yet be told; but the studies of the last fifty years have brought us so far along the road toward its completion that a review of the progress made and a glance at the yet unexplored realms and unanswered questions will be profitable. For this purpose this work is designed, with the hope that it may give a clear idea of the trend of recent biological science and of the advances made toward the solution of the problem of life.
MIDDLETOWN, CONN., U.S.A.
_October 1, 1898_.

CONTENTS.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION--Biology a new science--Historical biology--Conservation of energy--Evolution--Cytology--New aspects of biology--The mechanical nature of living organisms--Significance of the new biological problems--Outline of the subject 1

PART I.
_THE RUNNING OF THE LIVING MACHINE._
CHAPTER I.
IS THE BODY A MACHINE?
What is a machine?--A general comparison of a body and a machine--Details of the action of the machine--Physical explanation of the chief vital functions--The living body is a machine--The living machine constructive as well as destructive--The vital factor 19
CHAPTER II.
THE CELL AND PROTOPLASM.
Vital properties--The discovery of cells--The cell doctrine--The cell--The cellular structure of organisms--The cell wall--Protoplasm--The reign of protoplasm--The decline of the reign of protoplasm--The structure of protoplasm--The nucleus--Centrosome--Function of the nucleus--Cell division or karyokinesis--Fertilization of the egg--The significance of fertilization--What is protoplasm?--Reaction against the cell doctrine--Fundamental vital activities as located in cells--Summary 54

PART II.
THE BUILDING OF THE LIVING MACHINE.
CHAPTER III.
THE FACTORS CONCERNED IN THE BUILDING OF THE LIVING MACHINE.
History of the living machine--Evidence for this history--Historical--Embryological--Anatomical--Significance of these sources of history--Forces at work in the building of the living machine--Reproduction--Heredity--Variation--Inheritance of variations--Method of machine building--Migration and isolation--Direct influence of environment--Consciousness--Summary of Nature's power of building machines--The origin of the cell machine--General summary 131

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
FIGURE PAGE
Amoeba Polypodia in six successive stages of division Frontispiece 1. Figure illustrating osmosis 30
2. Figure illustrating osmosis 31
3. Diagram of the intestinal walls 32
4. Diagram of a single villus 33
5. Enlarged figure of four cells in the villus membrane 33
6. A bit of muscle showing blood-vessels 36
7. A bit of bark showing cellular structure 61
8. Successive stages in the division of the developing egg 63
9. A typical cell 65
10. Cells at a root tip 66
11. Section of a leaf showing cells of different shapes 66
12. Plant cells with thick walls, from a fern 67
13. Section of potato 67
14. Various shaped wood cells from plant tissue 68
15. A bit of cartilage 68
16. Frogs' blood 69
17. A bit of bone 69
18. Connective tissue 70
19. A piece of nerve fibre 70
20. A muscle fibre 71
21. A complex cell, vorticella 71
22. An amoeba 73
23. A cell as it appears to the modern microscope 86
24. A cell cut into pieces, each containing a bit of nucleus 89
25. A cell cut in pieces, only one of which contains any nucleus 90
26. Different forms of nucleii 93
27 and 28. Two stages in cell division