742 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Again, Nageli lias recently shown * that the cell of the yeast-fungus 

 contains about two per cent, of peptine, a substance hitherto known 

 only as a product of the digestion of azotized matter by animals. 



Indeed, all recent research has been bringing out in a more and 

 more decisive manner the fact that there is no dualism in life that 

 the life of the animal and the life of the plant are, like their proto- 

 plasm, in all essential points identical. 



But there is, perhaps, nothing which shows more strikingly the 

 identity of the protoplasm in plants and animals, and the absence of 

 any deep-pervading difference between the life of the animal and that 

 of the plant, than the fact that plants may be placed, just like animals, 

 under the influence of anaesthetics. 



When the vajior of chloroform or of ether is inhaled by the human 

 subject, it passes into the lungs, where it is absorbed by the blood, and 

 thence carried by the circulation to all the tissues of the body. The 

 first to be affected by it is the delicate nervous element of the brain, 

 and loss of consciousness is the result. If the action of the anaesthetic 

 be continued, all the other tissues are in their turn attacked by it and 

 their irritability arrested. A set of phenomena entirely parallel to 

 these may be presented by plants. 



We owe to Claude Bernard a series of interestins; and most in- 

 structive experiments on the action of ether and chloroform on plants. 

 He exposed to the vapor of ether a healthy and vigorous sensitive- 

 plant, by confining it under a bell-glass into which he introduced a 

 sponge filled with ether. At the end of half an hour the plant was in 

 a state of anaesthesia. All its leaflets remained fully extended, but they 

 showed no tendency to shrink when touched. It was then withdrawn 

 from the influence of the ether, when it gradually recovered its irrita- 

 bility, and finally responded, as before, to the touch. 



It is obvious that the irritability of the protoplasm was here ar- 

 rested by the anaesthetic, so that the plant became unable to give a 

 response to the action of an external stimulus. 



It is not, however, the irritability of the protoplasm of only the 

 motor elements of plants that anaesthetics are capable of arresting. 

 These may act also on the protoplasm of those cells whose function 

 lies in chemical synthesis, such as is manifested in the phenomena of 

 the germination of the seed and in nutrition generally, and Claude 

 Bernard has shown that germination is suspended by the action of 

 ether or chloroform. 



Seeds of cress, a plant whose germination is very rapid, were placed . 

 in conditions favorable to a speedy germination, and while thus placed 

 were exposed to the vapor of ether. The germination, which would 

 otherwise have shown itself by the next day, was arrested. For five 

 or six days the seeds were kept under the influence of the ether, and 



* " Ueber die chemische Zusammensetzung der Hefo," " Sitzungsbericht der math, 

 phys. Classe der k.k. Akad. der Wissens. zu Munchen," 1878. 



