Protistology

PROTISTOLOGY (Protistologie, Protisten-kunde, Protistik, protistology), a branch of biology encompassing the study of protists (Protista), primary single-celled organisms, a group of living beings contrasted by Haeckel in 1866 with the plant and animal kingdoms of multicellular organisms. Haeckel included higher fungi among protists, which are now classified under botany. Similarly, there is no basis for including multinucleate algae such as Caulerpa, Vaucheria, Botrydium among protists merely because they are not divided by complete septa into cells. In his famous treatise on microbiology (1898-1901), Duclaux included P. in microbiology, describing, for example, alongside the division of bacteria, the division of infusoria from the genus Colpidium and a flagellate protist. However, in most cases, the concept of P. is considered broader than that of microbiology. When founding the famous Archiv fur Protistenkunde in 1902, Schaudin indicated that it should concentrate on works concerning the natural history of single-celled organisms. Dobell understands P. in the broad sense as the doctrine of three groups of organisms: Protozoa (see), which possess an animal type of nutrition, Protophyta, characterized by an autotrophic plant type of nutrition, and proper Protista, occupying an intermediate position in terms of nutrition. Reichenow, referring to the fact that many protists have a dual type of nutrition, and pointing to the closest connection between unicellular flagellates containing chlorophyll and those lacking it, considers the division of unicellular organisms into Protozoa and Protophyta untenable and replaces the term P. with protozoology. Following Doflein, he includes in his guide to protozoology and protists with a clearly expressed plant type of nutrition and organization. P. in the modern sense of this term encompasses all microbiology [including bacteriology, mycology (in the part concerning lower unicellular forms), the doctrine of spirochetes, the Bartonella-Grahamia group, rickettsiae, submicroscopic organisms, Aphanozoa (Kruse), Chlamydozoa (Prowazek) = Strongyloplasmata (Lipschutz)], algology (in the part concerning unicellular algae) and protozoology in the narrow sense. Along the line of microbiology, P. is adjacent to medical, veterinary, agronomic, agricultural sciences, fermentation technology and other related disciplines. The enormous proportion of protists in plankton (see), benthos (see) and edaphone (the world of lower organisms living in soil) and their corresponding participation in biological processes occurring in the earth's crust brings P. closer to hydrobiology, geology, petrography and other related sciences. Along the line of protozoology and algology, P. connects, on the one hand, with zoology, and on the other hand, with botany. From a general biological point of view, the significance of P. as a science about unicellular organisms is very great. Among protists there are extremely convenient objects for studying the basic properties of cells. Max Schultze's protoplasm theory was created on the basis of the study of protists. In his dispute with Reichert as to whether the cell wall is an obligatory element of the cell, protists (Foraminifera) again became the decisive objects. The physicochemical properties of protoplasm, the emergence and development of cellular structures, the essence of tropisms and a number of other questions of general biological significance are being developed particularly energetically on protistological material. P. also provides extensive material on the very current issues of variability and heredity, important for medicine. Long-term modifications were initially established on protistological objects. On protists, the basic questions of cell adaptation to poisons and fundamental immunological problems (seroresistant strains of trypanosomes and spirochetes) were also studied. The doctrine of partial cell functions, developed by Ehrlich, was built mainly on the study of parasitic protists. The history of protistology, dating back from Kircher, Leeuwenhoek and Ehrenberg, largely merges with the history of its branches: microbiology, bacteriology and protozoology, being connected with the history of botany and zoology. To the founders of modern P., in addition to the scientists mentioned, A. Pascher, author of a number of fundamental works on the taxonomy of protists, and M. Hartmann, editors of Archiv fur Protistenkunde, should be added. Among Russian protistologists, mainly of botanical orientation, Tsenkovsky, Voronin, Gorozhankin, and Arnoldy should be named. The first course in P. in Russia was taught by Elpatevsky at Moscow University in 1910. In 1921, the Russian Protistological Society was founded in Moscow. (See also Protozoology.)

Sh. Moshkovsky