Correspondence
Replies to Rita Levi-Montalcini questions about PNAS paper
Discussions of research by others. Travel updates.
On a recent autobiographical article by Holtfreter and possible publishers. On Tiedemann. On Hamburger's recent work on NGF.
On the differentiation of a multicellular organism. On Spemann's organizer. On the status of embryology: "The prominent position of embryology, held for 50 years previously, has been lost." On the critical reception of Weiss.
On European biological instititions in general. On his difficulties at University of Rochester. On visiting Gallion at Sorbonne, Paris and Pasquale Pasquini in Bologna. On Spemann. On von Frisch. On American biology: "I think that in most of the American universities the representative biologists have no longer much intimate relation to the material they are investigating, namely the animal in all its wisdom and perfection. Nowadays it is the great fashion to use the methods of biochemistry or perhaps the electron microscope in an attempt to solve the riddles of nature. But are these methods good enough? They are most useful, desirable and fruitful. However, I have come to the conclusion that the very [illegible] and startling phenomena of morphogenesis are probably beyond the resolving capacity of these approaches. The embryo is still much wiser than we are. (...)"
Programmatic letter on Holtfretrer's conception to embryology. On recent experimental results on egg polarity.
On his emigration and return to Europe. On the status of science in American and German society.
On Caspari as chairman of the Rochester zoological department. On the recent visits of Steinbach et al. at Rochester.
On the new textbooks by Kuehn and Waddington. On his criticism of Trinkaus. On Paul Weiss. Programmatic letter on his research program.
On an article by M. Rose in Scientific American, December 1958, misinterpreting Holtfreter's experimental results on feedback action in embryogenesis.
On Hamburger's and Holtfreter's scientific biography. Remarks on Holtfreter's "artistic" workstyle.
On his recent vacation.