Julia Platt
Julia Barlow Platt (14 September 1857, in
embryologist, politician
and mayor.
Life
Julia Platt received her undergraduate degree from the University of Vermont before moving to Cambridge to perform research at the
embryogenesis, in particular the head development, from studying sharks and salamanders. Her most notable contribution to the field was her demonstration that neural crest cells formed the jaw cartilage and tooth dentine in Necturus maculosus (mudpuppy embryos), but her work was not believed by her contemporaries. Her claim went counter to the belief that only mesoderm could form bones and cartilage. Her hypothesis of the neural crest origin of the cranial skeleton gained acceptance only some 50 years later when confirmed by Sven Hörstadius and Sven Sellman.[1]
Unable to obtain a doctoral degree from Radcliffe or secure a university position, she said "if I cannot obtain the work I wish, then I must take up with the next best" and then became active in politics, including tearing down a fence to give the public access to the beach at Lover's Point in
Steve Palumbi and Carolyn Sotka, her prescient pioneering setting up of a marine protected area was crucial to the recovery of the sea otter.[3]
Publications
- Platt, J. B. (1890): "The Anterior Head-Cavities of Acanthias (Preliminary Notice)", Zool. Anz. 13: 239
- Platt, J. B. (1892): "Fibres connecting the Central Nervous System and Chorda in Amphioxus", Anat. Anz. 7: 282-284
- Platt, J. B. (1893): "Ectodermic Origin of the Cartilages of the Head", Anat. Anz. 8: 506-509
- Platt, J. B. (1894): "Ontogenetische Differenzirung des Ektoderms in Necturus", Archiv mikr. Anat. 43: 911-966
- Platt, J. B. (1894): "Ontogenetic Differentiations of the Ectoderm in Necturus" Anat. Anz. 9: 51-56
- Platt, J. B. (1898): "The development of the cartilaginous skull and of the branchial and hypoglossal musculature in Necturus", Morphol. Jahrb. 25: 377-464
Notes
- PMID 8143146.
- Discovery Communications. Retrieved July 15, 2017.
- ISBN 9781597269872.