Julia Platt

Julia Barlow Platt (14 September 1857 in San Francisco – 1935) was an American embryologist and politician.

She studied at Harvard University and obtained her doctorate at Freiburg in 1898. She investigated 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 salamanders, 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.

Unable to secure a university position, she became active in politics, and in 1931 (at the age of 74), she became mayor of Pacific Grove, California.

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

References

• Zottoli, S. (1994): "Julia B. Platt (1857-1935): Pioneer comparative embryologist and neuroscientist", Brain, Behav. Evol. 43: 92-106
• Palumbi, S.R. and C. Sotka (2010) The Death and Life of Monterey Bay: A Story of Revival. Island Press. 224 pp.