MECHANISM OF PROCESS OF DEATH 65 



It may prove to be generally true that death behaves 

 as a monomolecular reaction, which is inhibited (or 

 accelerated) at the start. The assumption of consecutive 

 reactions affords an explanation not only of the inhibi- 

 tion (or acceleration) at the start, but also of the fact 

 that up to a certain point the reaction appears to be 



TABLE II. 



Net electrical resistance of Laminaria in CaCl 2 0.278M. The resistance in sea 

 water (the normal environment} is taken as 100%. 



* The measurements were made at 15 Centigrade or corrected to this 

 figure. Each experimental figure is the average obtained from 6 or more 

 experiments. Probable error of the mean less than 10 % of the mean. 



reversible. The latter fact will be fully discussed in a 

 subsequent chapter. 



It is evident that if the theory of the writer is sound, 

 the equation which allows us to predict the death curve 

 in experiments with NaCl should apply equally well in the 

 case of experiments with CaCl 2 . This is the case, as is 

 evident from Fig. 29 and Table II (in this case we put 



= 0.0018 and K 2 = 0.0295). 



When the curve has a maximum, the height of the 



5 



