Edward Forbes and the modern Athens.

Abstract

EDWARD FORBES AND THE MODERN ATHENS C. F. A. PANTIN, M.A., ScD. (Cantab.), F.R.S.* November 18, 1954, marked the centenary of the death of Edward Forbes. He came from the Isle ofMan, and he was a great man as well as a great Manxman. Also he was a distinguished son of the University of Edinburgh at the close of the greatest intellectual brilliance of that city, when it was even presumptuously called "the modern Athens." What did he do in his short life—for he was only thirty-nine when he died? One ofhis ambitions hejust succeeded in achieving, to be professor ofnatural history at the University ofEdinburgh; but he achieved it too late to put it to any use for which he so earnestly desired it, for he died within nine months of his election. His other great wish was to publish the results ofhis early expedition to the Aegean Sea. These studies ofthe marine fauna of the eastern Mediterranean affected his whole outlook on biology (1). But in his overbusy life he was never able to deal fully with his collections, and his wish for leisure to examine them and for publication ofhis conclusions was never fulfilled. So neither ofhis ambitions was truly realized. Today not many biologists have heard ofhim. Yet at the centenary of his birth in 1915 distinguished geologists, botanists, and zoologists placed him among the great men of science of his times (2). I think it can be shown that they were right, for there are traces of him today throughout these sciences. A History ofthe British Mollusca by Forbes andHanley (3) is stillvaluable for the identification ofnorthern species. When the physiologist studies * This essay is the substance ofa Commemorative Lecture marking the centenary ofthe death of Edward Forbes, delivered at the Manx Museum, Isle ofMan, March, 1955. The author is Fellow and Praelector ofTrinity College, Cambridge; Department of Zoology, The University, Cambridge. The author has pleasure in thanking Miss Gillian Edwards for her help and perspicacity in the collection ofhistorical data during the studies on which this essay is based. I98 C. F. A. Pantin · Edward Forbes Perspectives in Biology and Medicine · Winter 1958 the electrical excitation of nerves, he commonly uses the giant nerve fibers ofa squid Loligoforbesi, so named in his honor by Steenstrup. Consider again this extract from an article by Forbes entitled "Note on the Causes ofCiliary Motion," published in the first volume ofthe London and Edinburgh Monthlyfournal ofMedical Science for 1841 (4): In the order Ciliograda [that is the Ctenophora or "sea-gooseberries"] we see the largest known examples of those remarkable organs, the vibratile cilia. These cilia are lanceolate, bent, flattened processes, not tubular, but solid. Neither are they webbed together as theyhave been figured, but separate. They are placed in transverse rows on short bars ofgranular tissue. . . . That the vibratile motion does not originate in the cilia themselves is proved by the fact, that ifone be cut away from its translucent base, it always remains immovable; and that the motions properly reside in the base composed ofgranular tissue, is evident since ifthe smallest portion oftissue remain attached to one ofthe cilia when it is cut away it continues to vibrate. Now, ifwe suppose a ciliferous bar to present regular undulatory motions in one direction ... we have at once the explanation of the phenomena ofciliary motion in the Ciliograda. Such an explanation will also account for the ciliary phenomena presented by the wheel-bearing animalcules and other infusoriae, where the undulations need only be propagated in a circle to produce the revolving appearance . ... A minute enquiry into the nature ofthe involuntary vibratile cilia seen at mucous surfaces among the higher animals is most desirable. So indeed it is, and it is being actively pursued today with the aid of high-speed cinematography and the electron microscope. But at a time when scarcely anything was known about the matter, these few shrewd observations made by Forbes remained perhaps the most important things known about the ciliary motion for eighty years. To this day, the observation that cilia are active only so long as they retain connection with at least a portion oftissue is a cardinal...