The Biology of the Cell Surface. FIRST EDITION.

JUST, Ernest Everett

Published by Philadelphia: P. Blakiston's Son, 1939.

About this Item

xi, 392 pp; 42 text figures; tipped-in slip at front. Original red cloth. Near Fine. First Edition. Just writes in his Preface (pp. ix-x): "The book may be divided into three parts. Part I, comprising Introduction, Life and Experiment, Protoplasmic System, Ectoplasm, General Properties of the Ectoplasm and Water, though dealing primarily with the animal egg, embodies principles which concern the fundamental organization of any living thing. Part II, including the Fertilization-process, the Fertilization-reaction, Parthenogenesis, Cell-division and Cleavage and Differentiation, discusses in particular the problems that refer directly to animal eggs in their earliest stages of development. Part III, embracing chapters on the Chromosomes and Ectoplasm, Ectoplasm and Evolution, and Conclusion, has to do with more or less theoretical discussions. Throughout the whole treatment, the principle that the cell is the biological unit is kept in mind. In particular, structure and function of the ectoplasm are emphasized; upon these my theory of the state of being alive is in large measure grounded." "In 1930 [Just] was invited by the famed protozoologist Max Hartmann to continue his research at the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institute in Berlin. His research there ended in 1933 with the rise of Nazism. In Naples in 1934, he started to write what he considered to be his crowning achievement, The Biology of the Cell Surface. He completed it in France where he worked at the marine biological station in Roscoff. In 1940, he was briefly incarcerated in a prisoner-of-war camp, before being rescued by the U.S. State Department. He returned to the United States but with failing health, he could not resume his teaching at Howard University; he died in October 1941" (quoted from Jan Sapp, " 'Just' in Time: Gene Theory and the Biology of the Cell Surface", Molecular Reproduction & Development, Vol. 76, 2009, p. 903). See alo: Scott F. Gilbert, "Cellular Politics: Just, Goldschmidt, and the Attempts to Reconcile Embryology and Genetics", in The American Development of Biology (ed. Ron Rainger, Keith Benson, and Jane Maienschein), pp. 311-346.

Seller Inventory # 17140

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Biology of the Cell Surface. FIRST EDITION.
• Publisher: Philadelphia: P. Blakiston's Son, 1939.
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Near Fine