Details
SCHLEIDEN, Jacob Mathias (1804-1881). Beitrge zur Phytogenesis. [Offprint from Johannes Mller's Archiv fr Anatomie, Physiologie und wissenschaftlichen Medicin 5, Heft 2 (1838)]. [Berlin: Veit, 1838].
8o (207 x 126 mm). Caption title. Two etched and aquatint plates, the first a black-ground aquatint, the second an etching with stipple engraving, by C. E. Weber after Schleiden. (Minor marginal dust-soiling.) Original plain gray wrappers (darkened, spine chipped, upper wrapper torn along hinge); folding morocco-backed case. Provenance: author's presentation copy to a Mr. W. Francis (inscription in English on front wrapper: "To Mr. W. Francis, Esq. from the author," citation of journal printing inscribed below).
PRESENTATION COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION, OFFPRINT ISSUE, of Schleiden's enunciation of his cell theory, in which he stated that the cell is the basic unit of plant life. A well-to-do botany professor who gave up academia to devite himself full-time to a successful career as lecturer and writer of popular scientific works, Schleiden made a name for himself through the present article, which provoked wide discussion and was quickly translated into French and English. Schleiden was the first to postulate that plant tissue is composed of aggregates of individual cells, and attempted in this article to describe the development of the vegetable cell. His mistaken view, based on a theory "as old as the study of the cell itself" (DSB), was that the cell develops from a nucleus or "cytoblast," which crystallizes within an amorphous primary liquid composed of sugar, gum and mucous. Although this theory of spontaneous generation of the cell was erroneous, Schleiden's work marked an important stage in the development of modern cell theory. A year later Theodor Schwann was to bring it one step further with his conclusion that cells were the basic unit of animal as well as plant life, and the two are generally regarded as co-founders of the cell or Schleiden-Schwann theory. VERY RARE. Garrison-Morton 112; PMM 307a; Milestones of Science 175; Norman 1907.
8
PRESENTATION COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION, OFFPRINT ISSUE, of Schleiden's enunciation of his cell theory, in which he stated that the cell is the basic unit of plant life. A well-to-do botany professor who gave up academia to devite himself full-time to a successful career as lecturer and writer of popular scientific works, Schleiden made a name for himself through the present article, which provoked wide discussion and was quickly translated into French and English. Schleiden was the first to postulate that plant tissue is composed of aggregates of individual cells, and attempted in this article to describe the development of the vegetable cell. His mistaken view, based on a theory "as old as the study of the cell itself" (DSB), was that the cell develops from a nucleus or "cytoblast," which crystallizes within an amorphous primary liquid composed of sugar, gum and mucous. Although this theory of spontaneous generation of the cell was erroneous, Schleiden's work marked an important stage in the development of modern cell theory. A year later Theodor Schwann was to bring it one step further with his conclusion that cells were the basic unit of animal as well as plant life, and the two are generally regarded as co-founders of the cell or Schleiden-Schwann theory. VERY RARE. Garrison-Morton 112; PMM 307a; Milestones of Science 175; Norman 1907.