There was a time, not all that long ago, when scientific study of the cell was called cytology, and the workers in the field named themselves cytologists. When I was a medical student, lectures in cytology were a special, segregated part of the curriculum in the histology course, given along with general anatomy, and they were, as I recall, the surest of cures for insomnia. I still possess Cowdry's three-volume set entitled Special Cytology, published in 1934, and leafing through these books today is rather like examining a medieval manuscript. You could never have guessed what was going to...