Chapter the Third

Is Life Cellular?



"Herr Professor Unger once told me, 'It is the task of physiology to reduce the phenomenon of life to known physical and chemical laws.' and he, Professor Schleiden and myself now believe that all of these physical and chemical laws will be found in these units we call cells."
A small boy with a broad smear of ink across his mouth tentatively raised his hand, and his seat-mate tried desperately to pull it down. Interrupting Mendel in full flow could invite unpleasant questions. But Brother Gregory had already seen the hand.
"Ahh, Master Nave, what have you to say?"
In a squeaky voice, for Master Johann Nave Jr was one of the youngest boys present, replied, "My father also believes in cells, he is convinced that the green scum that - floats on the surface of ponds during the summer is a - vast collection of single cells all too small to be seen individually." The long speech flustered the small boy, who rubbed at his face anxiously thus spreading the ink stain further.

Mendel blinked, then said, "Ahh yes, your father is Herr Johann Nave, isn't he?" To which the boy replied in the affirmative by simply nodding his head vigorously. "Of course," Mendel said, his face showing recognition and enlightenment, "I know your father, he was at University with me."
Johann Nave had indeed be a friend of Mendel's during his time at the University of Vienna. Although not a science student (he was studying law), Nave had attended Unger's lectures in his free time and had become fascinated by algae. This fascination he had carried back to Brno, where, as a provincial civil servant, he was spending his evenings and weekends studying fertilization in 'pond scum'.
"I read something that your father wrote, just recently," Mendel said thoughtfully, "I must remember to speak to him again, and soon. But where were we?" The class remained faithfully silent, so it was left to Thomas Makyatta to prompt his ex-pupil. "You were telling us about the work of Doktor Schleiden."
"Ahh yes."

"While he was a Professor of botany at the University of Jena, Doktor Schleiden wrote a book called "Contributions to Phytogenesis", which was published in 1838. Here he states very clearly that the different parts of the plant body are composed of cells or - derivatives of cells ."
"But," Makyatta could not help interrupting, "he was not the first or the only person to make this claim"
"Indeed no," Mendel hurried to correct the impression, "Cells were probably first seen in England by Herr Robert Hooke. At least his is the first written description of 'cellas' as he called them in 1665, and in the 1820's the 'Globular Theory' was very popular." Mendel did not explain to his class that this theory maintained that animal tissues were made up of proteinaceous globules, an artifact of microscopes not corrected for spherical aberration.
"And as I have said," Mendel went on, "Doktor Purkinje, a fellow Czech, contributed much to our understanding of micro structural forms, but, alas, he is not too friendly to us using the term 'cell'."

Here Mendel was misquoting the good Professor Purkinje, who had tried to reign in the 'cell fever' that was spreading rapidly through the world of biology, by making the point that all semi-solids found within the bodies of living organisms should not be automatically called 'cells'. But Mendel's view prevailed.
"Herr Doktor Professor Schleiden is the first person I know who has put forward the principle of cells being as important in biology as the existence of atoms is to the study of chemistry. He has also recognized the importance of a tiny globule found in all cells, first discovered by the Scottish botanist Robert Brown. This - 'nucleus' inside every cell seems to have a connection with the division of cells."