THE "NEW" EMBRYOLOGY AT THE ZOOLOGICAL STATION AND AT THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY

¹ Stazione Zoologica, 80121 Napoli, Italy

The Naples Zoological Station was one of the main centers of the revolt against Haeckelian, phylogenetic embryology. On the other hand, the founder of the Station, Anton Dohrn, while being a distinguished embryologist, was an enthusiastic follower of Haeckel's theories. The question discussed here first is that of the interactions between Dohrn and the followers of the new trend in embryology, the Entwicklungs-mechaniker, among whom Herbst, Driesch, and Boveri were regular visitors to the Station. While Dohrn fully acknowledged the significance of the discoveries arising from the new experimental approach to embryology, he remained faithful to phylogenetic embryology. Examining the interactions between two American biologists most involved in the foundation of the MBL, namely C. O. Whitman and E. B. Wilson, and the leaders of the "new" embryology, we then discuss the effect of these interactions on the development of embryological research at the MBL. We suggest that the main effect was to promote the new conceptual, and hence methodological, approach to the problems of development. The Naples group saw the egg as a cell that could be manipulated in an effort to answer questions concerning cell physiology. In contrast, the Woods Hole group was interested in the egg as the starting point of development. This was reflected also in the choice of the experimental material: the sea urchin egg in the former case and the highly "determined" eggs of mollusks and annelids in the latter.