Jan Boeke en de harmonie van het organisme. Een case-study van de totaliteitsidee in de 20e-eeuwse Nederlandse biologie

Jan Boeke and the harmony of the organism. A case-study of holism in twentieth-century Dutch biology. In the 1920s and 1930s many biologists adopted a holistic view of the organism. In this article the scientific work of the morphologist and neurohistologist Jan Boeke (1874-1956) is discussed as an example of the influence of holistic ideas in Dutch biology. It is shown that Boeke's opposition to the neuron theory of the nervous system — he remained a reticularist all his life — was closely linked with his holistic conception of the organism. Boeke was also critical of the Mendelistic-Morganis... Mehr ...