Theories

Introduction
• Theories of preformation, epigenesis, germplasm, and
recapitulation represent significant milestones in the
history of biology. These theories attempted to explain
the mysteries of development, heredity, and evolution,
laying the groundwork for modern biology
PREFORMATION THEORIES
• During seventeenth century a Dutch scientist
Swammerdam (1637-80) theorized that sex-cells
contained preformed embryos or miniatures of the
adult.
• He and many other biologists, namely Haller (1708-77);
Bonnet (1720-93); Spallanzani (1729-99) and Malpighi
(1673), thought that the ovum contained a transparent,
highly folded, small and unobservable miniature of the
adult, which was in some way stimulated to growth by
the seminal fluid.
• Those who believed that the miniature organism was
present in the egg were known as Ovists.
• Some other microscopists, such as, Leeuwenhock
(1632-1723), Hartsoeker (1656-1725), etc., believed
that pre- formed miniature organism present in the
head of the sperm and not in egg and that was
called homunculus or animalcule (animalcule means
spermatozoon).
• These scientists were called Animalculists or
Spermists. Spermists, thus, theorized the sperm as
the seed and egg as the soil in which the seed was
planted.
• Some ovists namely Swammerdam and Bonnet
advocated an extreme form of preformation theory
called encasement or “emboitement” theory. This
theory holds that successive generations of
individual organisms pre-existed one inside the other
in the germ cells of the mother.
• It was estimated that, as many as, 200 million years of
human beings were present, already delineated in the
ovaries of eve.
• Such theories of preformation persisted well in the
eighteenth century, by which time the German
investigator Caspar Friedrich Wolff (1759) offered
experimental evidence that no preformed embryo
existed in egg of the chicken.
• He suggested that during embryonic development the
organs formed successively in an epigenetic manner.
EPIGENETIC THEORY
• Wolff advocated that the future embryonic regions of an
egg first consist of granules or “globules” (viz., cells or
their nuclei) lacking in any arrangement that can be
related directly to the form or structure of the future
embryo.
• Only gradually did these “globules” organize into
rudiments (germinal layers) which, in turn, took on the
characteristics of the various organs of the embryo.
• This method of progressive development from the
simpler to the more complex, through the utilization of
building units (globules or cells) is called epigenesis.
• Wolff’s epigenetic theory was confirmed by great
embryologists of early nineteenth century, notably by
Karl Ernst Von Baer (1792-1876), the father of modern
embryology.
GERMPLASM THEORY
• In 1883, A. Weismann proposed that early development
involves the orderly unpacking of an embryo already
reorganized, if not actually preformed, in the
chromosomes of the nucleus. He spoke of his theory as
“the architecture of the germplasm”.
• He postulated that there are units of heredity and
development, which he called “ids” or “determinants,”
According to him, the first cell divisions are differential,
that is, they first separate the determinants for the right
side from those for the left, than the determinants for
the anterior end separate from the posterior, and so on
for several divisions of the egg.
.After that, so he thought, interactions make epigenetic
development possible.
.He further showed in 1893 that a child in no way
inherited its characters from the bodies of the parents,
but, rather from their sex-cells alone.
.These germ cells, in turn, acquired their characters
directly from pre-existing germ cells of the same kind.
. He pictured the “germ plasm” as a self-perpetuating,
cellular legacy which has existed as an unbroken stream
through the ages.
.At each new generation a temporary body (soma) is built
up around it, to serve as carrier of the germ cells and to
held in trust for the forthcoming offspring.
Recapitulation Theory or Biogenetic
Law
• This theory was proposed by Earnest Haeckel (1868)
and Muller (1864). This theory highlights the relation
between embryonic development and evolution.
• According to this theory, higher animals in their
development pass through stages which are similar to
adult stages of lower animals which were their
ancestors. In other words, ontogeny repeats or
recapitulates the phylogeny.
• Thus, the ancestral characters reappear in the
developmental stages of an individual. The embryonic
stages of higher animals resemble the adult stages of
their ancestors.
• For example, in the ontogeny of a frog, there appears a
tadpole larva. This larva resembles an adult fish. Thus in
the life cycle (ontogeny) of an amphibian, there is a fish
like tadpole stage which represents its fish like
ancestors.
Conclusion
• The theories of preformation, epigenesis, germplasm,
and recapitulation represent significant milestones in
the history of biology. Although these theories have
been largely superseded by modern scientific
discoveries, they demonstrate the evolving nature of
scientific inquiry and the ongoing quest to understand
the complexities of life.