Kapronczay Károly szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 222-225. (Budapest, 2013)
TANULMÁNYOK - Müller Miklós: Egy 1952-es Kossuth díj - A dialektikus szovjet sejtbiológia rövid regnálása Magyarországon
MÜLLER, Miklós: A Kossuth Prize in 1952 45 Marxism" (Lepeshinskaya 1939 129.). A telling testimony of her world view is the title of a paper, she wrote just after Stalin’s death in 1953: „Creative significance of the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin for the development of natural sciences” (Lepeshinskaya, 1953a, 1953b). Lepeshinskaya noted that one area of biology, cell biology, had been exempted from the universal evolutionary interpretation when the doctrine „ommnis cellula e cellula” became generally accepted. She was convinced that this view cannot reflect the true nature of things, that cells must have their own evolution, and that they must arise from non-cellular living matter and then later end their life. In a series of experimental papers published from 1932 onward Lepeshinskaya claimed to have observed the formation of cells from noncellular living matter in developing bird and fish eggs, in cell free material extracted from ground-up fresh water hydras, and in healing wounds of vertebrates. Her results and views are summarized in her major monograph (Lepeshinskaya 1945, 1950c, 1951, 1952) obviating the need for specific references to her individual papers. She claimed that her experimental findings confirmed her main conclusion that each and every cell has its own evolutionary process. Noncellular living material can organize into cells with complete cell structure, having a characteristic cell nucleus, cytoplasm and cell membrane. Because this process can occur outside of existing cells, it negates Virchow’s doctrine that cells arise only from preexisting ones. Later she supplemented this conclusion by stating that even in the well known processes of cell division one cell acts as the mother cell and that inside in it the daughter cell undergoes identical evolution, as if it were developing independently. In her words: “The cell originates from the protoplasm even during complex karyokinetic division. The first changes in the dividing cell begin in the protoplasm: here emerges the centrosome with the translucent sphere. This embryo of the cell transforms subsequently into the linin network, fills up with chromatin that gives finally the nucleus of the new cell. Instead of one maternal cell there are now one maternal and another, daughter cell. Thus instead of accepting Virchow 's thesis of “all cells originate from cells ” it is more correct and consistent to accept a different position that interprets the origin of any cell by cell division or by the development of living substance forming a cell de novo as follows: all cells arise from protoplasm (living matter). Both the ontogenesis as well as the phylogenesis of all cells is initiated by the development of protoplasm, through changes in it. (Lepeshinskaya 1950c 178.; in Hungarian: Lepeshinskaya 1951 194.). Her theory entered the literature under the name New Cell Theory.6 With this final conclusion she claims to have filled in a gaping hole in biology, showing that cells are subject to the same laws of development as all existing matter. With this Lepeshinskaya claimed to have followed Engels’ prophetic advice: „... how the advance from simple plastic albumen to the cell and thus to the organism is accomplished must first be learnt from observation... ” (Engels 1962 469.). 6 After the „victory” of Lysenko’ Creative Soviet Darwinism (Michurin biology) at the August meeting of the Lenin Agricultural Biology in 1948, three major „debates” took place in 1950. In May the debate on Lcpeshin- skaya’s Noncellular Living Substance, in June the debate on Pavlovian physiology and in June and July the debate on Marr’s linguistic theories (e g. Soyfer 1994; Krementzov 1997; Havas 2002). All these debates ended with endorsment of a single Soviet doctrine in the respective fields.
