M ON ERA, AND THE PROBLEM OF LIFE. 6 77 



MONERA, AND THE PROBLEM OF LIFE. 



By EDMUND MONTGOMERY, M. D. 

 Ill THE PHYSICAL PHASE OF THE PROBLEM. (Concluded.) 



IT has been shown in former articles that living motion is the result 

 of alternate expansion and contraction on the part of the proto- 

 plasm ; and we could not fail to perceive that this occupation of so much 

 more or so much less space is the physical property of the protoplasm 

 under different states of chemical composition. It remains to be ascer- 

 tained by what agencies the chemical composition and decomposition 

 of the living substance are affected. What are the influences that dis- 

 integrate the protoplasm ? and what are the influences that reinte- 

 grate it ? 



A little attention to the visible changes which occur in the expand- 

 ing material of different monera, when being checked in its onward 

 course, soon demonstrates that it is the resistance of the medium, the 

 counteraction of the energies composing the immediate environment, 

 which causes chemical rupture in the organic substance. The molecule 

 of protoplasm, like all very high compounds, and, in fact, like almost 

 all nitrogenous compounds, is in a considerable degree explosive. 

 During the expansion of the protoplasm, the medium is pushing against 

 it with a force of its own ; and it is this opposing energy, exerted by 

 the medium, which, at some definite moment of its increasing composi- 

 tion and consequent expansion, causes this living substance at last to 

 explode. 



No unscientific conjecture has been allowed to enter into the above 

 conception of this highly-important vital occurrence. It is as a mental 

 sketch, in its outline, as positive and certain as any fact of Nature can 

 possibly be. 



In observing this process of decomposition, first the outer envelope 

 of the projecting cone is seen to become disintegrated, and, in lower 

 monera, also solidified. In these lower specimens the expanding mate- 

 rial pushes still onward along the central axis of the cone, breaking 

 through its apex, until it is at last also overcome by rigidity. 



As the expanding material is perfectly translucent, the slightest opti- 

 cal change in it can be easily detected. The whitish, somewhat more 

 opaque appearance of the stagnating protoplasm indicates that an im- 

 portant molecular alteration has taken place. That this alteration is 

 of a chemical nature is actually proved by the products of decom- 

 position being in many instances visibly gathered into a separate 

 globule. 



Thus the dynamical energy of the medium applies the match, gives 

 the turning-stroke to the pending explosion, and it is by this dynami- 



