Bounoure (1934) first described the presence in the egg of the frog Rana temporaria of a special cytoplasmic differentiation, which he termed the ‘germinal cytoplasm’. He was able to trace the developmental history of this plasm as it moved from its original position just under the cortex of the vegetal pole of the fertilized egg, to its inclusion in a number of cells of the early gastrula endoderm, and also mapped the migration of these cells into the gonad rudiments. Bounoure believed that the germinal cytoplasm is the definitive germcell determinant, and that its presence in a cell is a prerequisite for the cell to undergo meiosis and differentiate into a gamete.

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