Vol. XXXIII. September, 1917. No. 3 



BIOLOGICAL BULLETIN 



THE FORMATION OF STRUCTURES RESEMBLING 

 ORGANIC GROWTHS BY MEANS OF ELECTROLYTIC 

 LOCAL ACTION IN METALS, AND THE GENERAL 

 PHYSIOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE AND CONTROL OF 

 THIS TYPE OF ACTION. 1 



RALPH S. LILLIE. 



I. INTRODUCTION. 



In a recent paper on the nature of the physico-chemical 

 processes underlying the conduction of stimuli in living cells 2 

 I have called attention to the existence of various significant 

 parallels between the transmission of the effects of local chemical 

 or other alteration in metals and the transmission of physio- 

 logical influence in organisms. These parallels suggest that 

 processes of a kind related to electrolysis may be concerned in 

 the physiological type of transmission, since such local action 

 in metals (e. g., rusting in iron) is now recognized as a phe- 

 nomenon of electrolysis, due to the formation of local electric 

 couples between adjoining regions of the surface which differ in 

 composition or solution-tension. In particular the rapidity with 

 which the chemical and other effects at the immediate site of 

 stimulation are transmitted to remote resting regions, in rapidly 

 conducting tissues like nerve, indicates that any process involving 

 an actual transfer of material from active to inactive regions 

 cannot possibly form the basis of the transmission. Some in- 

 fluence of an essentially different kind is indicated; and the type 

 of phenomenon long known to electrochemists as "chemical 

 action at a distance" 3 in which a chemical change at one elec- 



1 From the Laboratory of General Physiology, Clark University. 



2 Amer. Journ. Physiol., 1916, Vol. 41, p. 126. 



3 Cf. Ostwaldis article, " Chemische Fernwirkung," Zeilschr. physik. Chem., 1891, 



Vol. 9, p. 540. 



135 



