Abstract
DURING the last two decades or so a new branch of science has been quietly, but rapidly, working its way from a position of comparative obscurity to one of considerable importance., This new-comer has been designated Cytology, and it embraces as its province that department of knowledge which centres around the cell, whether this body be regarded from its structural or from its functional aspect. And cytology, which is still a young offshoot both from botany and zoology, possesses one strongly marked advantage, viz. that of providing a common ground on which the botanist and the zoologist may still meet to discuss questions of equal interest to each. For in dealing with the cell we are approaching facts and phenomena which are essentially shared or exhibited by animals and plants alike, and, indeed, the measure of their relative importance can be gauged by the degree in which they reappear in each of the two great divisions of organic life; although in most other respects the animals and plants have followed widely diverging paths of development.
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FARMER, J. The Present Position of Some Cell Problems. Nature 58, 63–67 (1898). https://doi.org/10.1038/058063a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/058063a0