Archives for developmental mechanics W. Roux, editor (1894–1924)
pp. 94-108
in: , Landmarks in developmental biology 1883–1924, Berlin, Springer, 1997Abstract
This year, 1994, marks the centennial anniversary of Roux's Archives for Developmental Biology. On 16 October, 1894, Number 1, Volume 1 of the Archiv for Entwicklungsmechanik, the first journal devoted to experimental studies of development, was issued. For the next 30 years, its founder, Wilhelm Roux, was its sole editor. During this period, this "new branch" of biology (Roux 1905), the causal analysis of development, would grow into a vigorous science, and the influential Archives (Gascoigne 1985) would prosper as well. Roux's philosophy as editor was defined in the first paper in the journal (Roux 1894a). [A translation by W.M. Wheeler is reprinted in Maienschein 19861. I will examine how this philosophy was practiced during the ensuing three decades. Areas of research that attracted the interest of early adherents of analytical embryology as reflected in the articles published in the Archives will be briefly explored. I will consider some seminal papers and ideas that first appeared in the Archives, as well as some of its contributors who are familiar figures to present day developmental biologists.