300 E. E. JUST. 



line with these current researches. He therefore conceived " ar- 

 tificial parthenogenesis " as a process comparable to hemolysis 

 and all hemolytic agents as artificial excitants of development. 

 Since, therefore, fertilization is to be regarded as a sort of " arti- 

 ficial parthenogenesis " and according to Loeb formally ex- 

 plained by these experiments of his rather than by actual inves- 

 tigation of the fertilization process per se, the egg is fertilized by 

 a sperm-borne lysin. Thus, on a mere assumption based on the 

 similar action of toxic agents on blood cells and on ova he first 

 explains " artificial parthenogenesis " and on this bases another 

 assumption to explain fertilization. Now, of course the mam- 

 malian red blood corpuscle is sensu stricto not a cell: in the ab- 

 sence of a nucleus its metabolism is scarcely that of a normal 

 cell, its anabolic activity must be limited, and its physical prop- 

 erties altered. While we lack convincing data for the estimation 

 of the life of the erythrocyte we well know that it is on the way 

 to destruction. Again, if we call to mind the various agents of 

 hemolysis from the simplest, distilled water, to the most complex, 

 snake venom or foreign sera, we must admit that they certainly 

 do not normally occur in blood plasma. Hemolysis is artificial 

 or pathological. Loeb compares the highly pathological process 

 of hemolysis to the initiation of development of the animal egg 

 perhaps the most complex cell in the living world, richly en- 

 dowed with synthetic power, a constructive mechanism of well 

 organized hereditable qualities. On the one side we have the 

 artificially induced disintegration of a piece of a cell, on the other 

 the normal activation that initiates the development of the future 

 metazoon. On purely logical grounds, therefore, the cytolysis 

 theory is scarcely tenable. 



If anything were wanting in the case against the cytolysis 

 theory we could point out that for the sea-urchins of Loeb's ex- 

 periments no single hemolytic agent acting alone induces develop- 

 ment ; they induce membrane formation or with longer exposure 

 death. Eggs exposed to these so-called agents of development 

 need for development (production of cell division and swim- 

 ming larvae) hypertonic treatment. It is the hypertonic sea- 

 water alone as Morgan long ago showed that induces cleavage. 

 One would scarcely denominate hypertonic solution as hemolytic. 



