Guo Pu (276～324)
Chinese name Jingchun, a writer, exegete and naturalist of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. He is from Hedongxi (Wenxi County, Shanxi Province). He was born in the second year of Xianning in the Western Jin Dynasty and died in the second year of the Eastern Prefecture. At the beginning of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, he was Zuo Lang, and later Wang Dun was appointed as a reporter to join the army. Dun wanted to plot a rebellion and ordered him to conduct a divination. Pu said that he would be defeated, so he was killed by Dun. Guo Pu once commented on "Erya", "Shan Hai Jing", "Dialect", "Biography of Emperor Mu", etc. Among them, "Erya Notes" contains rich knowledge about animals and plants.
Erya is the earliest Chinese work explaining the meaning of words. There are 19 chapters in the book, the last seven of which are "Release Grass", "Release Wood", "Release Insects", "Release Fish", "Release Birds", "Release Beasts" and "Release Animals", which record more than 590 kinds of animals and plants. and classified according to morphological characteristics. The writing in this book is simple and difficult to understand. Before Guo Pu, more than 10 people had annotated it, but "it was still not detailed, and there were many contradictions and omissions." Guo Pu spent 18 years researching and annotating "Erya" and made certain contributions to biology. First, he explained the ancient names of animals and plants based on the names of animals and plants that were popular at that time (Jin Dynasty) or in a certain local dialect. Secondly, he enriched and developed the detailed descriptions of various animals and plants in Erya. He also created a diagrammatic method for classifying animals and plants. According to Guo Pu's preface to "Erya", Guo Pu also notated it and made pictures. According to "Sui Shu·Jing Ji Zhi": "Erya Pictures" in 10 volumes, written by Guo Pu." It can be seen that in the Liang Dynasty, people also saw "Erya Pictures" written by Guo Pu. The "Erya Musical Pictures" that we have now is a reproduction of Song Dynasty drawings in the sixth year of Jiaqing in the Qing Dynasty (1801). In "Erya Sound Pictures", only the animals and plants that Guo Pu has annotated have pictures; otherwise, there are no pictures. Such annotations in "Erya" already have the prototype of flora and fauna.
Due to Guo Pu's research and annotations, "Erya" has become an important reference book for the study of Materia Medica in the past dynasties. The book "Zhenglei Materia Medica" of the Song Dynasty absorbed a large amount of Guo Pu's annotation of "Erya". "Zhenglei Materia Medica" is the blueprint for Li Shizhen's "Compendium of Materia Medica". After the Tang Dynasty, all large-scale Materia Medica books followed Guo Pu's method and included illustrations of animals and plants.
Jia Sixie
A famous agriculturist in ancient China. During the Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534), he was born in Yidu, Shandong Province (now Shouguang County, Shandong Province). He once served as the prefect of Gaoyang County in Qingzhou (now north of Linzi, Zi City, Shandong Province) in the Northern Wei Dynasty. He "collected the scriptures, romances and ballads, inquired about them, and tested them in practice" and wrote the book "Qi Min Yao Shu" and left his name for later generations. Other life events are unknown.
"Qi Min Yao Shu" was written around the 1930s to the early 1940s of the 6th century AD. The book contains 92 chapters and more than 110,000 words, reflecting the rather high level of agricultural production technology in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River in ancient China. It is the earliest and most complete agricultural book in existence. It includes a lot of knowledge about biology that the Chinese people had before the 6th century AD. The concept of heredity and variability of animals and plants is mentioned many times in the book. "Xing" or "nature" is used to express the inheritance of certain traits of animals and plants from one generation to the next. Realize that the sooner or later the fruit of peaches and plums, and the short and long age of the trees, are all caused by their different inner natures; whether the fruits of crops such as millet and millet are easy to fall off are also due to the different natures passed down from generation to generation. Whether a horse and a donkey can produce offspring and the strength of the offspring are also determined by genetics. He personally observed the variation in the relocation of garlic, coriander, peas, millet, etc., and believed that this was caused by different soil and geographical conditions. There are many precise descriptions in the book about the morphological characteristics of animals and plants. Among them, the gender and reproduction of cannabis are particularly accurately described (for example: the male plant can be pulled out after releasing pollen; if the male plant is removed before releasing pollen, the female plant will not bear fruit). It is of great practical significance to classify 86 millet varieties according to their morphological traits; and to identify varieties and classify types based on their maturity period, stalk length, seed setting rate, stress resistance, rice quality, rice yield, etc. The book also describes the relationship between the growth and development characteristics of plants and farming seasons, as well as the relationship between the growth and development status of animals and their age. For example, the growth process of crops is divided into three periods: "birth" - "show" - "mature" (ripening); and identifying the age of a horse based on the growth status of its teeth is a scientific and practical method. It is scientifically reasonable to use the boiling method to determine the germination ability of leek seeds. Mixed sowing of melons and beans to promote seedling emergence is also in line with the principle of physiological mutual benefit. According to the law that different plants will compete with each other when planted together, the method of cultivating street tree saplings is summarized: mix the sprouted locust tree seeds and cannabis seeds and sow them. The locust saplings will grow as tall as the cannabis that year. When the hemp matures, the hemp is cut off, leaving the locust saplings. At this time, the locust tree saplings are thin and long and must be tied with wooden strips. The next year, sow hemp seeds among the locust trees to force the trees to grow upward. After two years of this treatment, the saplings can be transplanted in the first month of the third year. The saplings cultivated in this way will be "straight and straight, as if they were one in a thousand." In Volumes 7, 8, and 9, the general characteristics of music composition, wine making, sauce making, and cheese making are also described, all of which reflect the considerable understanding of the fermentation of microorganisms at that time.
Shen Kuo (1031～1095)
A famous scientist in ancient China. The word is saved. A native of Qiantang (now Hangzhou, Zhejiang) in the Northern Song Dynasty. In the first year of Zhihe (1054), Shen Kuo entered an official position under the influence of his father and was appointed as the chief registrar of Shuyang County in Haizhou (now part of Jiangsu). He built canals and weirs and developed farmland, which was a great achievement.
In the sixth year of Jia Dynasty (1061), his brother Shen Fu was ordered to inspect the abandoned Qinjia Fair in Wuhu, Jiangnan. Shen Kuo strongly praised Shen Fu, restored the old fair, changed its name to Wanchun Weld, and opened up more than a thousand hectares of farmland. In the eighth year of Jiaqing, he was promoted to Jinshi. The following year, he was appointed as the manager of Yangzhou and joined the army. In the third year of Zhiping (1066), he went to Beijing to edit the books of Zhaowen Hall.
During the Xining period (1068-1077), Song Shenzong Zhao Xu appointed Wang Anshi as his prime minister and pursued reforms. Shen Kuo also participated in many activities at that time. In November of the fourth year of Xining, he moved to Prince Zhongyun and inspected the official affairs of Zhongshu Xingfang. The following year, he was also promoted to the position of Si Tianjian. He was the first to reform the bad government, dismissed the uneducated and unskilled people, and appointed Wei Pu, a blind man in civilian clothes, to revise the new calendar. Later, he made a new armillary sphere and a floating leak, and completed the "Xining Feng Yuan Li", which was commended by his official transfer. In September of that year, he was ordered to supervise the dredging of the Bianhe River waterway and used advanced methods to measure the topography of the Biandao River. In March of the sixth year, he moved to Jixian to manage the school. In May, he participated in the detailed determination of the third commander. In June, he went on an envoy trip to the two Zhejiang provinces to check on farmland, water conservancy, police and other matters, and also conducted inspections. To raise hungry people to build water conservancy projects, he proposed to remove two Zhejiang years and purchase an additional 120,000 pieces of silk. In March of the seventh year, he moved to Taichang Cheng and fellow practitioners to live and study. In July, he moved to the right to Zhengyan, promoted Zhizhigao, and also passed into Yinxian. In September, he was also sentenced to military weapons supervision. In the summer of the eighth year, the Liao people wanted to invade and occupy the land along Hedong Road in the Song Dynasty, which caused a border dispute. Shen Kuo, as a scholar of the Imperial Academy, was envoyed to negotiate. He read the files at the Privy Council in advance and found out the fact that the Song and Liao parties had previously agreed that the boundary was at the ancient Great Wall. After arriving at the Liao court, he argued hard and debated six times. The Liao people could not give in and returned with success. During his mission, he recorded the dangerous mountains and rivers as well as the customs and people of the Liao Dynasty. He wrote the "Illustrations of Envoys to Prisoners" and submitted it to the imperial court. Soon after, he was ordered to dispatch three envoys to take charge of the central financial work. In December of the ninth year, he moved to the Imperial Academy and was appointed as the third envoy of Quan. In July of the 10th year, he was impeached and demoted. He went to Xuanzhou (today's Xuancheng, Anhui) as a bachelor of Jixian Academy. In June of the third year of Yuanfeng (1080), he was once again reused by the Song Dynasty. He knew Yanzhou (today's Yan'an, Shaanxi Province), and served as Yan Road's strategic and pacification envoy. He became a border defense commander and actively trained troops to prepare for war. In the fourth year of the Xixia Empress Dowager Liang's dictatorship, the Song Dynasty took the opportunity to launch a large-scale attack and was defeated at the gate of Xiping Mansion (now southwest of Lingwu, Ningxia). After the Battle of Xipingfu, Yanlu soldiers under the command of Shen Kuo successively captured Xifutu and other villages. In order to further contain Xixia, Shen Kuo and others proposed the strategic policy of building castles in the Hengshan area, which was adopted by Song Shenzong. In August of the fifth year, Xu Xi built Yongle City (today's northwest of Mizhi, Shaanxi Province) and was besieged by Xixia, and the entire army was wiped out. Therefore, Shen Kuo was appointed deputy envoy of Tuanlian in Junzhou and resettled in Suizhou (today's Suixian County, Hubei Province), thus ending his political career.
In the eighth year of Yuanfeng, Zhezong of the Song Dynasty came to the throne and granted amnesty. Shen Kuo was appointed deputy envoy of Tuanlian in Xiuzhou (now Jiaxing, Zhejiang), and was resettled in this state. In the second year of Yuan Dynasty (1087), he completed the "map of counties and counties in the world" that he had been ordered to compile in the ninth year of Xining. The whole map includes one large and small general map and eighteen branch road maps. It was named "Shou Order Map" and was put into operation the following year. Later, the Song court gave him the false title of Sanlang of Zuochao, Shaoqing of Shouguanglu, and Nanjing branch, and allowed him to live as he pleased. Shen Kuo moved to Runzhou (today's Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province) and managed the garden he had purchased before, naming it "Mengxi Garden". He lived in seclusion here for eight years before his death. During this period, he wrote his scientific masterpiece "Mengxi Bi Tan", as well as his agricultural work "Mengxi Forgetting Records" (lost), and his medical work "Good Prescriptions". Shen Kuo's poems and essays were compiled into forty-one volumes of "Changxing Collection" in the Southern Song Dynasty, and nineteen volumes remain today. Shen Kuo's main works include 26 volumes of "Mengxi Bi Tan", 3 volumes of "Supplementary Bi Tan", 1 volume of "Continued Bi Tan", 19 volumes of "Changxing Collection", 15 volumes of "Su Chen Liang Prescription", etc. Among them, "Mengxi Bi Tan", which extensively records the flora and fauna of various places, is considered an important scientific work in ancient China. It also records other aspects of biological knowledge.
Shen Kuo is intelligent, diligent in thinking, and well-informed. He is able to learn from capable people in all walks of life. He has made important achievements and contributions in physics, mathematics, astronomy, earth science, biomedicine, etc. , has also made considerable achievements in chemistry, engineering technology and other aspects. For example, he pioneered the gap product technique and the circle technique in mathematics, and proposed the formula for calculating the sum of high-level differences and the approximate formula for finding the arc length. He advocated the scientific twelve-qi calendar and realized the value of oil, which showed his outstanding scientific knowledge. His methods of investigation, observation, and scientific experiments were also very advanced at the time. Many scientific inventions during the Northern Song Dynasty, such as movable type printing, compass application and other technologies, were spread with the help of Shen Kuo's records. The Song Dynasty was the peak period of the development of science and technology in ancient China, and Shen Kuo was the most important representative figure. In addition, Shen Kuo has certain attainments in literature, music, art, history and other aspects.
Through his observation and research on animals and plants, he extensively recorded and described the animals and plants produced in various places in his famous book "Mengxi Bi Tan", such as clams in the South China Sea, crocodiles in Chaozhou, and crocodiles in the northwest. Lycium barbarum, jerboas from the northern desert, etc. He accumulated a wealth of knowledge about animals and plants and left many scientific records. Regarding animals, for example, describing sea clams, "Sea clams are found in the sand on the coast. The big ones are like chess pieces, and the thin ones are like oilseed grains. They are yellow and white, or red. They are not the same type. They are houses of various clams." , "The genus of clams has the most... It does not refer to one thing, so it is commonly called sea clam ear." Sea clam is the general name for marine bivalves. It can be seen that at that time, people already knew that there were many types of sea clams, and they could identify them as different types based on their size, color and morphological characteristics. Rather, it is a general term for various types of clams. Shen Kuo also described the morphology and habits of crocodiles. "Generally, its shape is like that of a deer, but its beak is as long as its body, and its teeth are like saw teeth." "When it encounters deer and hogs, it eats them with its tail halberd."
It also introduced that the local people took advantage of the crocodile's habit of "setting a hook on the body of a big pig, rafting it in the flowing water, and eating the crocodile's tail, and it would be killed", thus destroying it. "Mengxi Bi Tan" also records the use of puffer fish's habit of "getting angry when touching the fence, and floating on the water with a bulging belly". The book also contains examples of the use of "walking bugs" to control agricultural pests in Gyeongju, as well as the methods used by people in Jingxian County, Cangzhou, Hebei to prevent mosquitoes and flies.
In terms of plants, after conducting a large number of field surveys and observations, he corrected previous mistakes based on the actual objects, such as specifying that Pulu is cattail and reed, Chijian is Gastrodia elata, and Citrus aurantium, The difference between Citrus aurantium and others. He used the phenology of different regions in northern and southern China as examples to illustrate the close relationship between plant growth and temperature. He said: "The grass in the mountains will not wither in the winter; the trees in the bridges and Fens will die first in autumn; the peach trees and plums in the mountains will be winter." In fact, Shuo Mo is like Tao Li Xia Rong, and the Qi of this place is different."
In addition, he also has relatively in-depth research on anatomy and physiology. In "Mengxi Bi Tan", he clearly stated that people have different characteristics. There are two parts: the pharynx and the larynx. The pharynx is used for swallowing food, and the larynx is used for ventilation. He also had a correct understanding of fossils. He saw fossils of snail and clam shells in the Taihang Mountains. Based on this, he correctly pointed out that this area used to be a seaside.
To commemorate this world-famous ancient Chinese scientist, on July 1, 1979, the Purple Mountain Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences named an asteroid (No. 2027) discovered by the observatory in 1964 as Shen Kuo.
Li Shizhen (1518～1593)
Poem Dongbi, late name Binghu, was a Chinese medical scientist and naturalist in the late Ming Dynasty. A native of Qizhou (now Qichun County, Hubei Province), he was born in Wannioba outside the east gate of Qizhou and died in Qizhou. His family has been practicing medicine for generations, and his grandfather was a "bell doctor" who traveled around the streets; his father, Li Yanwen, was a famous local doctor and the author of "The Biography of Ginseng", "The Biography of Mugwort Leaf" and "The Invention of Four Diagnostics". When he was young, he often went to the mountains with his father to collect herbs and gained a lot of knowledge about animals, plants and medicine. In the tenth year of Jiajing's reign (1531), he passed the scholar examination at the age of 14, but failed in the next three examinations. So he decided to practice medicine, see patients and study medicine. In 1551, he was hired as the Chief of Fengci in the Prince of Chu's Mansion and was in charge of the Good Medical Clinic. Later, he was recommended to the Imperial Hospital in Beijing to serve as a court judge. During this period, he had the opportunity to browse the rich medical classics collected by the palace and the royal family, and saw many medicinal specimens that were difficult to see at ordinary times. He paid special attention to the study of ancient materia medica. It was found that "in the old herbal medicine, jade, stone, water, and soil are mixed together, and the insects, scales, and media are indistinguishable. Some insects enter the wood, or the wood enters the grass." There is confusion in names and classifications. Therefore, he believed that this cursive script needed to be rewritten. He once pinned his hope of rebuilding Materia Medica on the "official repair" of Taiyuan Hospital, but the officials of Taiyuan Hospital actually accused him: "It is extremely arrogant to tamper with the ancient classics." In 1561, he excused his illness and returned home, determined to rely on his own strength to cultivate herbal medicine. Get the job done. In order to write this book well, he not only referred to nearly 800 kinds of historical documents, but also traveled all over the country to conduct on-the-spot investigations and collect prescriptions. He successively visited Mount Taihe (Wudang Mountain in Hubei), Mount Lu (Jiangxi), and Mount She (Jiangsu). Qixia Mountain), Maoshan (Jiangsu), Niushou Mountain (Jiangsu) and other places collected specimens and copied images. After 27 years of hard work and three draft revisions, he finally completed the masterpiece "Compendium of Materia Medica" when he was 61 years old (1578).
Compendium of Materia Medica has 25 volumes and more than 1.9 million words. It contains 1,892 kinds of medicines (including 1,518 kinds recorded by famous writers before the Jin Dynasty and the Yuan Dynasty, and 374 new kinds were added), 8,160 prescriptions, and 1,160 pictures. It summarizes China's pharmacological knowledge and medication experience before the mid-Ming Dynasty, corrects many errors in the herbal book, and raises China's medical science to a new level. It is also a rich work on animals and plants. The medicines it records mainly include three categories: animals, plants and minerals, including 1167 species of plants and 478 species of animals. There are more than 200 kinds of "Emergency Materia Medica for Historical Evidence".
Li Shizhen developed the ancient Chinese traditional animal and plant classification methods. In "Compendium of Materia Medica", he divided all animals and plants into 11 categories: grasses, grains, vegetables, fruits, trees, insects, scales, media, birds, beasts and humans. The subordinates were classified again. Under each category, several types of plants or animals are described.
When he described animals and plants under "category", he often arranged plants or animals of the same family and genus together. For example, in the "Mountain Grass Category", he ranked Adenophora adenospermum, Adenophora spp., and Platycodon grandiflorum, which belong to the Campanulaceae family. In the "aromatic grass category", he arranged the plants such as Bupleurum, Pediculus, Fangfeng, and Solanum belonging to the Apiaceae family together. In the "poisonous weed category", he also arranged the Euphorbia, Zepiper, and other plants belonging to the Euphorbiaceae family. Gansui, Xusuizi and others are arranged together. His ability to arrange plants in the same family and genus is obviously based on his careful observation of plant morphology, especially the morphology of plant reproductive organs. "Compendium of Materia Medica" describes the shape of the snake bed: "The flowers are like broken rice, clustered in clusters. Its seeds are composed of two pieces, like dill seeds and thin. There are also thin edges. All flowers that actually look like snake beds, Angelica sinensis, Xiong rhizome, cress, and carrot are also included. “The plants mentioned here all belong to the Apiaceae family.
He said in "Compendium of Materia Medica·Fan Lv": When arranging the order of "parts", he follows the principles of "from the smallest to the largest" and "from the humble to the noble". This shows that he has realized to some extent that there are natural levels in the animal and plant kingdoms from simple to complex, from low to high. This is particularly evident in his system of animal classification.
Although his classification method is not perfect yet, it is based on the shape, nature, taste, habits, habitat, use, etc. of animals and plants. Plants are classified into groups (5 divisions (classes)) and 28 categories (orders), and animals are classified into 28 categories (orders). (Including human beings) are included in 5 divisions (classes) and 18 categories (headings), and various animals and plants are organized according to their categories; this kind of orderly organization of categories (categories) by class (department) and species by order (category) is orderly The classification method was very advanced at that time, both in China and in the world.
In the "Compendium of Materia Medica", various animals and plants are first labeled as "Compendium", followed by explanations as "Title", followed by "Explanation, Explanation of Doubts, Correction and Error", and then "Smell", "Indications" and "Appendix". . It is clear-cut, focused, precise and practical. In the explanation of names, the ancient and modern names of various animals and plants are divided into "correct names" and "aliases". The earliest recorded name is the "correct name", and the rest are listed as "aliases" and their sources are indicated respectively. This somewhat unifies the names of organisms. In the "Jijie" project, the focus is on describing the morphology, ecology, origin and uses of various animals or plants. For example, regarding the pelican, it not only reasonably places it among the waterfowl in the bird department, but also gives a realistic description of its shape and ecology: "Pelicans are found everywhere, as are waterbirds. They are like ospreys but very large. They are as gray as gooses." The beak is more than a foot long, straight and wide, and the mouth is as large as a sac. It likes to eat fish in groups." (Volume 47) The name of the snake is Qizhou. After on-the-spot investigation, he made an accurate description in the "Compendium of Materia Medica": "Flower snakes (i.e. white-flowered snakes) are found in both Lake and Shu. Nowadays, they are only famous for the Qi snake, but Qi land is also rare. The goods in the market , the ones taken in the lawsuit all come from the mountains of Xingguo Prefecture in the south of the Yangtze River. They have snakes with dragon heads and tiger mouths, black bodies and white flowers, 24 square ribs, and four long teeth on the abdomen... They are mostly eaten on heather vines. Its flowers and leaves are found by people."
In addition, "Compendium of Materia Medica" also contains more than 200 kinds of mineral medicines, and provides information on the shapes, colors, identification and exploration methods of these mineral medicines. "Compendium of Materia Medica" also has many unique insights in chemistry, such as the description of the difference between metals and alloys in much more detail than its predecessors. Li Shizhen also conducted in-depth research on the theory of traditional Chinese medicine and the diagnosis of diseases. He wrote "Binhu Pulseology", "Eight Meridians Examination", "Pulse Jue Examination" and "Treatise on the Five Internal Organs", "Three Burners Guest Difficulty", "Mingmen Kao" and so on (the last three types have been lost).
In the twenty-fourth year of Wanli (1596), three years after Li Shizhen's death, "Compendium of Materia Medica" was published for the first time in Nanjing, namely the Jinling edition. It was re-engraved in Jiangxi in 1603 and has been re-engraved dozens of times since then, promoting the development of Chinese medicine and the study of animals and plants. "Compendium of Materia Medica" was introduced to Japan in the early 17th century, and to Europe at the beginning of the 18th century at the latest, and was successively translated into Japanese, Korean, German, French, English, Russian, Latin and other languages. The study of natural history had a great impact.
Tong Dizhou (1902～1979)
Zi Weisun, a native of Yin County, Zhejiang Province, was a Chinese embryology and developmental biologist. Born on May 28, 1902, died on March 31, 1979. He graduated from the Department of Biology of Fudan University in Shanghai in 1930 and received his PhD in philosophy from the University of Brussels in Belgium in 1934. He once held teaching, scientific research and administrative leadership positions in Shandong University, the Institute of Oceanography, and the Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and served as director and vice president of the Department of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
One of his major contributions was the experimental research on the development of amphioxus from the 1950s to the early 1960s. Due to the taxonomic status of amphioxus, its embryonic development has always received attention. In the past, it was thought that its development was a mosaic type. If part of it was missing, it could not be supplemented and perfected through adjustment. He used methods such as separation and replacement of blastomeres to prove that the developmental fate of blastomeres in early amphioxus embryos has certain plasticity. Moreover, blastomeres belonging to the three germ layers can transform into each other to varying degrees through cell-cell interactions under experimental conditions. In addition, he also found that the embryonic development of amphioxus has an induction effect similar to that of vertebrates. These studies reveal the consistency in the developmental mechanisms between amphioxus and vertebrates. This proves the important position of amphioxus in the evolution from invertebrates to vertebrates. In the early 1960s, he applied nuclear transfer technology to transplant the nucleus of goldfish into the nucleated turtle eggs. He found that the early traits of the larvae after the transplantation of the nucleus seemed to be based on the cytoplasm. He transplanted carp cell nuclei into enucleated crucian carp fertilized eggs and found that some of the characteristics of the eggs after they developed into adults were between the two fish. Both cases show the influence of egg cytoplasm on trait formation. He also found that the nucleus of a goldfish was transplanted into an octopus egg, and then transferred back to the fertilized goldfish egg after a certain period of development. Sometimes, the characteristics of a hybrid embryo between an octopus and a goldfish could be produced. It is likely that the goldfish nucleus was temporarily in the cytoplasm of the octopus. If you stay, you will also be affected in some way. He had envisioned breeding by transplanting cell nuclei: combining the advantages of two fish that couldn't cross and passing them on. His research proposes a new and possible approach to animal breeding.
His research on ascidians was mainly conducted before the 1950s. His research proved that some tissues and organs in embryonic development are plastic, correcting the previous view of some scholars that its development was strictly mosaic.
From the 1940s to the early 1950s, in his experimental research on early fish development, he also proved that the protoplasm of fish eggs flows toward the animal pole after fertilization, and its tissue center is established soon after fertilization. This phenomenon may have universal significance in the development of vertebrates. During this period, he studied the ciliary movement of amphibian embryos and concluded that the direction of ciliary movement is dependent on mesodermal tissue, which may have an influence through chemical substances. From this, he explored the polarity of embryonic tissue.
After the 1970s, Tong Dizhou began to pay attention to using biochemical methods to study the nuclear-cytoplasmic relationship. He and his collaborators also studied the mutagenic effect of nucleic acids on goldfish traits, achieved many results, and published papers.
His scientific research work always runs through a clue, which is from the structure of the egg before and after fertilization to the relationship between the cytoplasm and the nucleus during development, and then explores the role of the cytoplasm in the inheritance of traits.
Tan Jiazhen
Chinese geneticist, native of Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province. Born on September 19, 1909. Graduated from Soochow University in Suzhou in 1930; worked as a graduate student at Yanjing University in Beijing from 1930 to 1932. Under the guidance of Professor Li Ruqi, he conducted research on the inheritance of elytra color spots in Ladybug axyridis and obtained a master's degree. From 1932 to 1934, he taught at Soochow University. In 1934, he went to the Morgan Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology for further study, and received a doctorate in philosophy in 1936. After returning to China in 1937, he was employed by the Department of Biology of Zhejiang University and continued his research on fruit flies and ladybirds. He has been working at Fudan University since 1952, and has served successively as Dean of the Department of Biology, Director of the Institute of Genetics, Vice President and Advisor to the President. He is currently a member of the Department of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
In 1934, he engaged in research on the evolutionary genetics of Drosophila under the guidance of Professor T. Dobzhansky. Using the latest method of studying Drosophila salivary gland chromosomes at that time, he analyzed the genetic differences between closely related species of Drosophila. Chromosomal differences and genetic maps of chromosomes contributed to the formation of the "modern comprehensive theory of evolution." While working in the United States, he published more than 10 papers individually or in collaboration with scientists from the United States, Germany and other countries. In 1946, the phenomenon of dominant inheritance of mosaic color spots was discovered in the Asian heterochromatic ladybird, which attracted the attention of the international genetics community.
Tan Jiazhen has been engaged in education for decades and has trained a large number of scientific talents. He also participated extensively in various social activities and held various positions, mainly including Chairman of the Chinese Genetics Society, Vice President of the 15th International Society of Genetics (1980), Director of the Shanghai Museum of Natural History, and Standing Committee of the Shanghai Municipal People's Congress. Deputy Director of the Committee, member of the 6th Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, vice chairman of the 5th Central Committee of the China Democratic League, 8th Chairman of the Shanghai Municipal League, member of the NGO Steering Committee of the United Nations Center for Science and Technology Development, and International Unutilized Plants Development committee member, etc. In 1985, he was awarded the title of foreign academician by the American Academy of Sciences.