plasmogeny, -gony Biol.
(plæzˈmɒdʒɪnɪ, -gənɪ)
[f. plasmo- + -geny. The variant plasmogony is ad. Ger. plasmogonie (Haeckel) with suffix repr. Gr. -γονία begetting, generation: cf. cosmogony.]
Name for a mode of spontaneous generation: see quot., and cf. autogeny.
| 1876 E. R. Lankester tr. Haeckel's Hist. Creat. I. 339 We call spontaneous generation plasmogeny when the organism arises in an organic formative fluid, that is, in a fluid which contains those requisite fundamental substances dissolved in the form of complicated and fluid combinations of carbon. 1904 M{supc}Cabe tr. Haeckel's Wond. Life xv. 369, I distinguished two principal stages—autogony (the formation of the first living matter from inorganic nitrogenous carbon-compounds) and plasmogony (the formation of the first individualised plasm; the earliest organic individuals in the form of monera). |