1878

Mitosis

• Wilhelm von Waldeyer-Hartz called them chromosomes,
• Greek for “colored bodies,”
• because they were visible as small threads
• when Walther Flemming
• stained them blue using an aniline dye.
• Flemming named stuff in the cell that could be stained blue
• chromatin.
• So Flemming gets the credit for discovering
• chromosomes,
• and he was able to watch them in the process
• of cell division,
• which he called mitosis, Greek for “warp thread.”
• *
• Others had observed mitosis earlier
• than Flemming,
• but they didn’t have the means of making the parts visible
• using dyes.
• *
• Edouard Van Beneden observed chromosomes
• during the production of gametes
• by 1868.
• Wacław Myzel described mitosis
• in cornea cells of frog, rabbit, and cat
• in 1875.
• Otto Bütschli observed mitosis
• and called chromosomes rodlets
• by 1876.
• Eduard Strasburger observed cell formation
• and cell division in gymnosperms
• by 1876.

Omnis nucleus e nucleo

• Eduard Strasburger famously wrote,
• “New cell nuclei can arise only
• from the division of other nuclei.”
• Flemming coined the phrase
• omnis nucleus e nucleo,
• “all nuclei come from nuclei,”
• after Rudolf Virchow’s phrase
• omniis cellula e cellula.

Aerosols and dyes

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• to the Institute of Applied Mythology
• for an aerosol can of Spirit Fog.
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