August 10, 2019 Saturday
Bedtime Story
Intracellular Micropipette
The phenomenon of electrolyte conduction
was studied in great depth by German physicist Friedrich Kohlrausch (1840-1910)
who is today considered one of the greatest or most important experimentalists
of the nineteenth century.
Dilute solutions and their conductivity
follow Kohlrausch’s laws of concentration dependence and additivity of ionic
concentrations.
Ida Henrietta Hyde had observed that
electrolytes in water affect cell division through some kind of differences in
electrical potential within cells.
So it made sense to her to device micro
instruments that would be able to record changes in electrical potentials or
currents within an individual cell.
Not just record but Dr. Hyde (that would be
appropriate title after her doctorate from a reluctant German professor) wanted
to stimulate individual muscle and neuronal cells of her marine animals at the
microscopic intracellular level and record the internal changes at the same
time.
Working on this idea she developed intracellular
micropipette though history biased as always never gave her credit for it.
With this invention she could then stimulate
tissues at their cellular levels both chemically and electronically and at the
same time inject or aspirate components from within a cell.
This was a no small feat though in years to
come many scientists would go on to both develop and refine such micropipettes
that would transform both the study of molecular biology as well as
interventional medicine.
Perhaps of all the men of science that
Bowditch happened to have worked with in his trip to Europe after the American
Civil War, the one who had the most impact upon him and who he emulated later
upon returning to Harvard was the German physician and physiologist at the
University of Leipzig Carl Ludwig.
Leipzig was to physiologists in mid 1800s
what Göttingen was to mathematicians in the end of the 19th and the
beginning of the 20th century studded with star talents and
attracting more.
At Leipzig Bowditch came across men like
Englishman Ray Lankester (known for evolution and rationalism), Italian Angelo
Mosso (inventor of the first neuro-imaging technique known as ‘human
circulation balance’), Hugo Kronecker (brother of mathematician Leopold
Kronecker) and Carl von Voit (specialized in human nutrition and regulation of
diet).
Carl Ludwig like French Claude Bernard,
German von Helmholtz (made major contributions to my field of ophthalmology
through study of physiology of vision, ophthalmic optics and invention of
ophthalmoscope), Ernst von Brücke (worked on the action of ciliary muscle of
eye) and Emil du Bois-Reymond (discovered that nerves and muscles operate
through electrical mechanism and developed experimental electrophysiology) was among
those men who completely overturned the old way of thinking about biology and
medical sciences.
They completely rejected the centuries old
idea of vitalism which assumed that all the phenomena of living organism or
life could only be explained through special biological laws and some “vital
spark” or “vital energy” or “élan vital” which some would equate to soul.
Stay tuned to the voice of an
average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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