On Growth and Form

Abstract

IT may seem sufficiently obvious that living tissue is to a large extent subject to physical and chemical laws ; if a man falls off a cliffhe is as much subject to gravity as a stone is, and the action of nitric acid or excessive heat on skin is much the same whether the skin is alive or dead. Sir D'Arcy Thompson's well-known work, now in its second edition, gives many illustrations that are less obvious. The author finds that at all stages of growth the mode and rate of formation of new tissue are largely determined by the form of the organism at the time ; and since this in turn determines the rate and distribution of growth, the development is reducible to differential equations with regard to the time.

On Growth and Form

By Sir D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson. Revised and enlarged edition. Pp. viii + 1116. (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1942.) 50s. net.