Although much of Johannes Holtfreter’s career was focused on the function of the organizer, first discovered by Hilde Mangold and Hans Spemann, in the early 1940s he turned his attention to the mechanics of gastrulation in amphibian embryos. By closely studying the behaviors of individual cells, he was one of the first to describe how cells collectively give rise the morphogenesis of gastrulating embryos.
Holtfreter’s success in uncovering the cellular behaviors in amphibian embryos was due in large part to his pioneering in vitro culture techniques. To see them more clearly, he explanted single or clumps of cells from different parts of embryos into dishes filled with a balanced salt solution (known today as Holtfreter’s medium) and then examined their movements and changes in shape. When incubated in this medium, the cells could stay alive for weeks.
To observe and document his cultures, Holfreter created numerous beautifully executed drawings. It is clear from his notebooks that his talents as a visual artist played a central role in his research process. Holtfreter took mostly visual notes that often skillfully depicted the three-dimensional structure of the tissue he was looking at. Several of these drawings accompanied the two major papers he published on this study, one in 1943 and the other the following year.
Seeing with Multiple Mediums
- Landecker, H. (2006). Microcinematography and the History of Science and Film. Isis, 97(1), 121–132. http://doi.org/10.1086/501105
- Brauckmann, S. (2011). Cultures of seeing embryos and cells in 3-dimensions and flatness. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 42(4), 365–367. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsc.2011.07.010
- Brauckmann, S. (2012). On Fate and Specification: Images and Models in Developmental Biology. In N. Anderson & M. R. Dietrich (Eds.), The Educated Eye: Visual Culture and Pedagogy in the Life Sciences (pp. 213–234). Dartmouth College Press.
- Maienschein, Jane. 1991. “From Presentation to Representation in E. B. Wilson’s The Cell.” Biology and Philosophy 6 (2): 227-54.
Staging Development
- Hamburger, Viktor and Howard L. Hamilton. (1951). “A Series of Normal Stages in the Development of the Chick Embryo.” Journal of Morphology 88(3): 49-92.
- Hopwood, N. (2005). Visual Standards and Disciplinary Change: Normal plates, Tables and Stages in Embryology. History of Science, 43, 239–303.
Looking at Cells
Wilson and Conklin: Tracing Cell Lineages
- Conklin, E. G. (1897). The Embryology of Crepidula: A Contribution to the Cell Lineage and Early Development of Some Marine Gasteropods. Journal of Morphology, 13(1), 1–226.
- B. Wilson, E. (1892). The cell-lineage of Nereis: A contribution to the cytogeny of the annelid body. Journal of Morphology, 6(3), 361–481.
Holtfreter: Observing Cells
- Holtfreter, Johannes. (1943). “A study of the mechanics of gastrulation Part I.” Journal of Experimental Zoology 94: 261-318.
- Holtfreter, Johannes. (1944). “A study of the mechanics of gastrulation Part II.” Journal of Experimental Zoology 95: 171-212.
- Hamburger, Viktor. (1996). “Introduction: Johannes Holtfreter, Pioneer in Experimental Embryology.” Developmental Dynamics 205: 214-216.
- Gerhart, John. (1998). “Johannes Holtfreter: January 9, 1901–November 13, 1992,” Biographical Memoirs National Academy of Sciences 73: 209–28.
Trinkaus: Filming Embryos
- Trinkaus, John Philip. "Surface activity and locomotion of Fundulus deep cells during blastula and gastrula stages." Developmental Biology 30 (1973): 68–103.
- Trinkaus, John Philip. "The yolk syncytial layer of Fundulus: Its origin and history and its significance for early embryogenesis." Journal of Experimental Zoology 265 (1993): 258–84.
Experimenting on Embryos
Exogastrulas
- Gerhart, John. (1998). “Johannes Holtfreter: January 9, 1901–November 13, 1992,” Biographical Memoirs National Academy of Sciences 73: 209–28.
Transplating Limb Buds
- Allen, Garland E. (2004). “A Pact with the Embryo: Viktor Hamburger, Holistic and Mechanistic Philosophy in the Development of Neuroembryology, 1927-1955.” Journal of the History of Biology 37: 421-474
- Hamburger, Viktor. (1934). ‘‘The Effects of Wing Bud Extirpation on the Development of the Central Nervous System in Chick Embryos.’’ Journal of Experimental Zoology 68: 449–494.
- Hamburger, Viktor. (1938). ‘‘Morphogenetic and Axial Self-differentiation of Transplanted Limb Primordia of Two-day Chick Embryos.’’ Journal of Experimental Zoology 77: 379–397
