Morphologioal and experimental studies on the skeletogenesis of the fowl

Abstract

The skeleton of the embryonic fowl is particularly favourable material both for the study of the normal histogenesis of cartilage and bone and for experiments with the tissue culture technique. Fowl embryos are easy to obtain at any stage of development require, the bones are loss hard than those of most mammalian embryos so that except in the later stages they can be sectioned without previous decalcification and fowl embryonic tissue is more suitable for cultivation than any other owing partly to the ease with which large quantities of suitable culture medium can be prepared and partly to the readiness with which the tissue grows under the conditions of life In vitro.The first part of this thesis consists of an account of the normal histogenesis of cartilage-bone, of non-ossifying cartilage ant of membrane bone; the long-bones of the limbs, the distal hart of Meckel's cartilage and the mandibular membrane bones have boon selected as examples of these three types of tissue. This work was undertaken in order to provide a basis for a series of tissue culture experiments of which the morphological results are described in Parts II and III. Some of these latter studies were correlated with biochemical investigations by Dr. R. Robison of the Lister Institute and the relation between Dr. Robison's results and my own morphological observations is considered in a section of the discussion.