Volume 1

Essays upon heredity and kindred biological problems / by August Weismann ; edited by Edward B. Poulton, Selmar Schönland, and Arthur E. Shipley, authorized translation.

  • Shipley A. E. (Arthur Everett), Sir, 1861-1927.
Date:
1891-1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Essays upon heredity and kindred biological problems / by August Weismann ; edited by Edward B. Poulton, Selmar Schönland, and Arthur E. Shipley, authorized translation. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    PREFACE. The following paper was read at the meeting of the Asso- ciation of German Naturalists at Salzburg, on September 21st, 1881; and it is here printed in essentially the same form. A somewhat longer discussion of a few points has been now intercalated; these were necessarily omitted from the lecture itself for the sake of brevity, and are, therefore, not contained in the account printed in the Proceedings of the fifty-fourth meeting of the Association. Further additions would not have been admissible without an essential change of form,, and therefore I have not put into the text a note which ought otherwise to have been there, and which is now to be found in the Appendix, as Note 8. It fills up a gap which was left in the text, for the above-mentioned reason, by attempting to give an explanation of the normal death of cells of tissues—an explanation which is required if we are to maintain that unicellular organisms are so constituted as to be potentially immortal. The other parts of the Appendix contain, partly further expansions, partly proofs of the views brought forward in the text, and above all a compilation of all the observations which are known to me upon the duration of life in several groups of animals. I am indebted to several eminent specialists for the communication of many data, which are among the most exact that I have been able to obtain. Thus Dr. Hagen of Cambridge (U.S.A.) was kind enough to send me an account of his obser- vations upon insects of different orders : Mr. W. H. Edwards of West Virginia, and Dr. Speyer of Rhoden—their experience B 2