Walther flemming biography sampler
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Cell division had been described as early as 1842 by Carl Nägeli, who thought it was an anomalous event. He talked about the prophase, metaphase, anaphase, and telophase, among other stages of mitosis.
The word "chromosome" is from the Greek, and means colored body — chromo for color and some for body.
How do cells know when to divide? He named this process "mitosis" since he was the first to perform a thorough examination of chromosomes during division. He was a pioneer in the application of recently discovered aniline dyes to see cell features.
He made these discoveries while examining salamander larvae's cells in the late 1800s. His father, Carl Friedrich Flemming (1799–1880), was the director of the Mecklenburg State Hospital for the Mentally Ill. In addition to attending medical schools in Göttingen, Tübingen, Berlin, and Rostock, his son participated in the Franco-Prussian War as a volunteer physician in 1870.
He clarified that the reproductive cell nucleus divides twice to create four genetically distinct daughter cells, each with a single set of chromosomes. In 1879, Flemming used aniline dyes, a by-product of coal tar, to stain cells of salamander embryos. It was revealed to him that "the nucleus always splits before the cell does". In his seminal work Zell-substanz, Kern und Zelltheilung (1882; “Cell-Substance, Nucleus, and Cell-Division”), he identified and explained the complete process of mitosis.
Walther Flemming Biography
Of Flemish descent, Flemming was born in Sachenberg, Germany, where his father worked as the director of an insane asylum.
His book, Zur Kenntniss der Zelle und ihrer Theilungs-Erscheinungen, was published in 1878 to further our understanding of cells and cell division. Nonetheless, Flemming's in-depth observations and explanations played a critical role in developing the idea of mitosis.
Thanks to Flemming's contributions, the science of cytology made great strides and gained a deeper comprehension of cell division and structure.
He served briefly as a hospital assistant before becoming an assistant in the department of zoology at Wurzburg University. Due to a femur fracture, he was unable to leave the now-demolished house at Düsternbrooker Weg 55 during his final years. He saw that chromosomes were "doubled" when they appeared in prophase, and "solved" the problem of chromosomal partitioning between mother and daughter cells.
He named the stainable material present in the cell nucleus "chromatin" that same year.
At last, anatomy moved into a new facility close to the Zoology building at the start of 1880. He did not discover that chromosomes must double to divide until 1891.
Flemming also realized that reproductive cells do not divide according to the conventional pattern, and he used the fire salamander's sperm production as an example of this.
Following many hours of real-time monitoring and targeted labeling, Flemming managed to depict the change from a "resting" to a dividing cell nucleus. He described the whole process in his book Zell-substanz, Kern und Zelltheilung (Cell-Substance, Nucleus, and Cell-Division), which was published in 1882. How do cells divide so evenly?
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Because of this, he noted in his first annual report that "only a few slides of bone, muscle, and vessel" could be created for the anatomical collection, and not all pupils got material.