TABLE OF CONTENTS Cell culture is defined as growth of cells dissociated from the parent tissue by spontaneous migration or mechanical or enzymatic dispersal. Primary cell culture refers to the cell culture initially derived from the parent tissue prior to any subsequent culture in vitro. Tissue culture has been known since the beginning of this century as a method of studying animal cell behavior. The history of animal cell culture dates back to 1856 when Ludwig maintained animal organs alive outside the body by pumping blood through them. Actually, this can be considered the start of animal tissue culture or organ culture. After some years, in 1885, Roux removed a portion of the medullary plate of a chick embryo and maintained it in a warm saline solution for some days. It was Ross Harrison who demonstrated the in vitro growth of living animal tissue by explanting a fragment of nerve cord from a frog tadpole and placing it in a drop of frog lymph, in 1907. He observed that within hours the nerve fibers began to grow from the cells in the tissue fragment.
During 1911 to 1912 Burrows and Alexis Carrell succeeded in growing tissue fragments from adult dogs, cats, rats, and guinea pigs and also in growing malignant (cancerous) tissues. Carrell started a cell line from a tissue taken from the heart of a chick embryo, which was propagated by Albert H. Ebeling for 34 years. Ebeling used the culture to test the toxicity of germicides.
