讀書隨筆 the Songof theCell

 書： the song o the cell by suddharthaMukeherjee

The universalCell:

Schleiden and Schwann established the first 2 rules for the cellular theory:

1. All living organisms are composed of one or more cells.
2. The cell is the basic unit of structure and organization in organism.

Yet, both of them struggled to understand where the cells come from.  Because of vitalism, which is a believe that living organism cannot be arisen from solely physical materials.  Life must contain some outside source, either an energy, or some material that we can not perceive,  to spark life in living organisms.  

Here's a point where I am a little lost from author.  Because it seemed that vitalist believes that life must have a source, either magical, religion or something else.  Yet, later on, when the author refer to  vitalism, he used phrase like, vitalist believes that life come out of no where...    But of course, the author listed a lot of weird and different believes for different vitalists.  Some even thought there's a "tiny human" lived inside of men's sperm...    

Then comes Rudolf Virchow, who established 3 more rules for cellular biology:

1. All cells come from other cells (Omnis cellula e cellula)
2. Normal physiology is the function of cellular physiology
3. Disease, the disruption of the physiology, is the result of the disrupted physiology of the cell.  

The above 5 principles formed the pillars of cell biology and cellular medicine.  

Virhow 君的一生是一個很有意思的故事。  他是普魯士軍醫大學畢業， 之後又參加了當時普魯士內政部治療斑疹傷寒的一個團隊，到當時正為此病肆虐的區域服務。  他目睹了當時落後的情況和政府的無知無能，寫了一系列文章批評當時的時政。  又在 1848 年一場遍及全歐洲的革命後，從首府柏林被驅逐到一個偏遠醫院。  到偏遠醫院讓他倒是可以專心從事醫學研究工作。  以上的三個總結也是在這一時期逐步得出的。  不過他也沒有忘記他對社會的理想， 我在此書裡可以看到他有一個領悟， 其實可以把一整個人或其他多細胞的生物想像成是全體細胞的生活環境。  他看到一個正常的生物就是體內細胞互相合作的結果。   幾乎所有病恙，都可以從細胞的病變找出根由。  他想的也是社會中每個人互相合作的關係。  1856 年，因為他的學術成就，他回到柏林工作。  甚至在後來的德國逐漸有雅利安人的優越這種想法出現後， 他還為了反證這種說法而做了研究證明金髮碧眼並不是雅利安人的專利。  

一些讓我有感的句子：

"It isn't sufficient to locate a disease in an organ; it's necessary to understand which cells of the organ are responsible.  An immune system dysfunction might arise from a B cell problem, a T cell malfunction, or a glitch in any of the dozens of cell types that  comprise the immune system.  For example, patients with AIDS are immunocompromised because the human immunodeficiency virus(HIV) kills a particular subset of cells -- CD4 T cells -- that help coordinate an immune response."

"Or, as Virchow reminds me daily: "Every pathological disturbance, every therapeutic effect, finds its ultimate explanation only when it's possible to designate the specific living cellular elements involved."