40 ACTION OF AUXETICS AND KINETICS 



bacilli, and even grew into long chains, a 

 phenomenon which is unusual in this species. 

 Tyrosin had already been employed by H. B. 

 Fantham in his experiments with Entamceba 

 coli. He found that this substance reduced the 

 period of the life-cycle of the amoeba and hastened 

 the division of the nucleus (within the cyst) into 

 eight daughter nuclei. It was found by Wherry, 

 during his experiments with amcebse, that reduced 

 oxygen tension predisposes to amitosis and the 

 production of multinucleate forms, and conversely 

 a free supply of oxygen favours mitosis and 

 division of the cytoplasm. We regard this as 

 an important discovery, and the effect of tyrosin 

 can be correlated with this view. The tyrosin 

 is readily oxidisable, as is shown by the culture 

 media rapidly turning black, and this would 

 obviously diminish the amount of oxidising sub- 

 stances produced by the bacteria, which are available 

 for the amceba, and would reduce the efficiency 

 of oxidation processes which may play some 

 part during division of the cell. 



Creatine (auxetic) and Choline (kinetic and 

 augmentor}. In the first place three live slides 

 were made simultaneously from the same culture 

 of amoeba. One acted as control, using tap 

 water, and the others contained 0'005-per-cent. 

 solutions of creatine and choline respectively. 

 The multiplication was so marked in the latter 

 compared with the control that it was decided 

 to repeat this and make an actual count of the 

 numbers of amoebae present. The creatine caused 

 some increase, but not to the same extent as 

 the choline. Three live slides (A, B, C) were 



