The first description of the division of a cell

MOHL, Hugo von.

Ueber die Vermehrung der Pflanzen-Zellen durch Theilung. Eine Inaugural-Dissertation / Erläuterung und Vertheidigung meiner Ansicht von der Structur der Pflanzen-Substanz / Untersuchungen über die Lenticellen / Untersuchungen über den Mittelstock von Tamus Elephantipes / Ueber den Bau des Cycadeen-Stammes und sein Verhältniss zu dem Stamme der Coniferen und Baumfarn / Untersuchungen über die Entwicklung des Korkes und der Borke auf der Rinde des baumartigen Dicotyledonen / Ueber die Verbindung der Pflanzen-Zellen untereinander.

Tübingen: Ludwig Friedrich Fues, 1835.

1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Item #003542

MOHL, Hugo von & BRACKENHEIM, August Wilhelm Winter von. Ueber die Vermehrung der Pflanzen-Zellen durch Theilung. Eine Inaugural-Dissertation. Tübingen: Ludwig Friedrich Fues, 1835. 20 pp., 1 lithographed plate. [Bound after:] MOHL, Hugo von. Erläuterung und Vertheidigung meiner Ansicht von der Structur der Pflanzen-Substanz. Tübingen: Ludwig Friedrich Fues, 1836. iv, 39 [1] pp., 2 lithographed plates. [Bound before:]. MAJER, Carl E. & MOHL, Hugo von. Untersuchungen über die Lenticellen. Tübingen: Ludwig Friedrich Fues, 1836. 19 [1] pp. ENDERLE, Carl Joseph & MOHL, Hugo von. Untersuchungen über den Mittelstock von Tamus Elephantipes. Tübingen: Ludwig Friedrich Fues, 1836. 16 pp. MOHL, Hugo von. Ueber den Bau des Cycadeen-Stammes und sein Verhältniss zu dem Stamme der Coniferen und Baumfarn. Offprint from: Denkschriften der k. b. Akademie der Wissenschaften, Band 10. München, 1832. 46 pp., 3 lithographed plates. HÜTTENSCHMIDT, Carl Robert & MOHL, Hugo von. Untersuchungen über die Entwicklung des Korkes und der Borke auf der Rinde des baumartigen Dicotyledonen. Tübingen: Ludwig Friedrich Fues, 1836. 26 pp. FRISONI, Eduard & MOHL, Hugo von. Ueber die Verbindung der Pflanzen-Zellen untereinander. Tübingen: Ludwig Friedrich Fues, 1835. 24 pp., 2 lithographed plates. 7 papers in one volume, 4to (265 x 209 mm). Contemporary marbled boards, spine with gilt-lettered red paper label, blue-sprinkled edges (minor rubbing of boards and board edges, corners bumped and scuffed). Little even browning throughout, occasional minor foxing of text and plates. Provenance: Bibliotheca Collegii Exaeten (ink stamp to first title), Gräfl. Schaesbergsche Bibliothek (bookplate to front pastedown); Collection of Peter and Margarethe Braune. Very good copy. ----

EXCEEDINGLY RARE FIRST APPEARANCE OF MOHL'S DESCRIPTION OF CELL DIVISION present in a Sammelband with other offprints and dissertations by him and his students. Mohl was the first to propose that new plant cells are formed by cell division (mitosis). Hugo von Mohl (1805-1872) was a German botanist. "[He] was one of the central figures in the emerging fields of plant anatomy and physiology. His most famous contributions concerned the plant cell, in particular the cell wall and cell division, and the origin of plant vessels from cells. These studies paved the way for cell theory. Moreover, he greatly engaged in the transformation of botany into an inductive science and promoted its institutional autonomy from medicine as well as from philosophy, co-founding in Tübingen Germany's first faculty of natural sciences" (Dröscher).
In 1832 Mohl was appointed professor of botany in Tübingen, a post which he never left. The process of cell division as observed under a microscope was first discovered by him in 1835 when he worked on green algae. His findings were published in the dissertation by one of his students in 1835. Mohl studied medicine in Tübingen, but his dissertation of 1828 already had a botanical focus as it dealt with the pores of plant cells. Publications on the anatomical structure of the trunks of palm trees, tree ferns and cycads soon followed. These were often illustrated with numerous self-drawn plates. "Mohl's meticulous studies revealed the first description of the division of cells. Observing division of the alga Conferva glomerata, he recognized the tough secondary fibrous substance of the plant now known as the cell wall" (DSB). Mohl's findings on mitosis were later confirmed by Unger, Hofmeister, Nägeli and others and summed up by Virchow in 1858 with the words "omnis cellula e cellula" (see NDB 17, 1994). This disproved Schleiden's cell formation theory, who, generalizing the rare special case of free cell formation during the formation of the endosperm, advocated the idea that cells arise from a slimy matrix in which a cell membrane forms around each cell nucleus. Mohl also described the tetrad division of pollen and spore mother cells and proved that all plant fibers consist of different types of cells. He also recognized that the tracheae of flowering plants arise from rows of cells whose transverse walls are completely or partially dissolved, and that as the cell walls grow thicker, new layers are deposited on the thin primary wall, with the pits being left out. In 1846 Mohl coined the expression 'protoplasm' for the living content of the cell. He attributed the secondary thickening of the trees to the fact that the cambium ring arises directly from the meristem of the vegetation point, a view which, after a long discussion, was only confirmed for most trees in 1922 by S. Kostychev. In his book Grundzüge der Anatomie und Physiologie der Zelle (1851), Mohl critically summarized what was then known about this subject. He also engaged in the construction and manufacture of microscopes; he could grind and set lenses himself. In 1843 he founded together with D. v. Schlechtendal the Botanische Zeitung and was its co-editor until 1872 (see NDB 17, 1994).
References: K. Mägdefrau, Mohl, Hugo von. In: Neue Deutsche Biographie 17, 1994, pp. 690-91 (NDB); DSB IX, p. 441; A. Dröscher, Mohl, Hugo von. In eLS, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd (Ed.), 2015). - Visit our website for further reading and images!

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