Love song to the fragile post-mitotic individual

Sometimes, while reading older scientific articles, I come across wonderful passages like this one:

"In writing the history of a cell, or a person, the customary and usually best (although seldom most interesting) place to start is at birth. The birth of a neuron, as a new post-mitotic individual in an exploding population, is an event of logical beginning for the narrative of its subsequent life, which may extend for many years and indeed, for some vertebrates, nearly a century or more. The chapters of the history are numerous and must be examined comprehensively. They include the embryonic site of origin of a particular neuroblast; its specification as to anatomical address at some time prior or subsequent to that event; its route and rate of migration through a substrate and past other cells at early and critical stages of development; its differentiation into a mature neuron with a characteristic arrangement of organelles and a distinctive pattern of dendritic and axonal processes; its receipt of afferent endings and attainment of efferent terminals; its acquisition of special environmental relationships with glial elements, myelin, and blood vessels; its morphological and/or chemical modification resulting from adaptation to continued function; and finally its degeneration and ultimate death in old age. Alternatively, the history may end with death of the cell during early development." (Jay B. Angevine, Jr., J Comp Neurol, 1970)

To me, this reads like a love song to a neuron. It's just so romantically written, and makes the life of a cell seem so vibrant and tragic. Scientific articles aren't written like this anymore -- they are so exact and sterile with no room for imaginative speculation or poetic metaphors. I think it's a shame.

Although, I have to say, my PI would put a huge red "X" through the "and/or".