Prof. E. van Beneden

Abstract

EDOUARD VAN BENEDEN, who died on April 28, adds another to the already long list of illustrious zoologists who have left us since last summer. He belongs essentially to the epoch which brought forth Anton Dohrn and Alexander Agassiz, whose loss we have so recently mourned, and, like them, he participated in the triumphs of biological achievement which mark the 'sixties, 'seventies, and 'eighties of last century. If Dohrn may be called the founder of marine laboratories, and Agassiz one of the originators of modern oceanic research, van Beneden may surely be styled the father of modern cytology. For it was he who discovered the exact similarity of the male and female nuclei in fertilisation, and the halving of the number of chromosomes in gametogenesis.