Recent Studies of Embryonic Induction

Abstract

SINCE the beginning of experimental embryology the student interested in the developing organism has puzzled over the complex cellular movements and interactions by which a single ovum organizes itself into a multicellular animal. Indeed, the first experiments that were done on embryos were concerned with this problem. Wilhelm Roux, in 1888, killed one of the cells or "blastomeres" of the developing frog egg at the two-cell stage and found that the remaining blastomere developed into only half an embryo. These results were soon contested, and the arguments that followed set the stage for the controversial atmosphere that still characterizes the . . .