BIOLOGY; 



OR, PHYSIOLOGY, ZOOLOGY, AND BOTANY. 



CHEMICAL THEORY OF CELL FORMATION. 



DR. C. MONTGOMERY has written a very remarkable paper, read 

 before the Royal Society, December 20, 1866, on the above sub- 

 ject. The whole paper has a very particular interest, and his 

 tacts are well worth verifying by all who have an opportunity of 

 doing so. From preliminary observations rationally treated, tho 

 above gentleman made the following experiments : A viscid sub- 

 stance was required, and myeline, after a long search, was found, 

 to be the one. When to myeline in its dry amorphous state water 

 was added, slender tubes were seen to shoot forth from all free 

 margins, " being sometimes wonderfully like nerve tubes in ap- 

 pearance, flexible and plastic." From this crystallization was in- 

 ferred, and this extension was prevented by an intimate admixture 

 with the white of an egg; clear globules resulted from imbibition 

 by a viscid substance. By further extensions of this observation 

 aiid similar ones, globules with lively molecular movement were 

 found. A typical cell with nucleus, and even nucleolus, and " the 

 white margin so often mistaken for a cell wall, was always pres- 

 ent." This latter fact will be a decisive answer to Mohl's theories. 

 Mother-cells were formed. Lastly, globules were obtained with 

 another inclosed smaller globule, and this was sometimes mul- 

 tiple, like the typical pus-cell. If, instead of water, serum be 

 added to the thinly-spread myeline, bi-concave discs will form, 

 only generally much larger than blood corpuscles. The changes 

 in theory effected b} 7 these precise facts will, of course, be very 

 great. The author observes that " ' cells ' being thus merely the 

 physical result of chemical changes, they can no longer afford a 

 last retreat to those specific forces called vital. Physiology must 

 aim at being something more than the study of the functions of a 

 variety of ultimate organic units/ 1 Chemical News. 



BLANCHING OF THE HAIR. 



Physiologists have been at a loss to account for the sudden 

 whitening of the hair, which is known to be produced by intense 

 and sudden terror or profound grief. Mr. Erasmus Wilson, in a 

 paper recently read at the Royal Society, threw considerable light 

 upon the question. The paper was founded on a case apparently 

 unique, in which every hair of the head was colored alternately 

 brown and white from end to end. The white segments were 

 about half the length of the brown, the two together measuring 

 about one-third of a line. Mr. Wilson suggested the possibility 



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