X CONTENTS 



The Third Approach: The Importance of Salt and Water for Life 



and Growth 101 



1. The Ocean, the Cradle of Life 103 



2. Our Blood as the Descendent of the Ancient Ocean 105 



3. Water Retention and Water Exchange in the Tissues of Our 



Bodies 109 



4. The Swelling and Shrinking of Living Cells 113 



5. The Amazing Size of the Osmotic Pressure and its Measurement 119 



6. Historical Remarks: The Life of Moritz Traube and the 



Further Development of the Work on Osmosis 120 



7. The Fluid Retention in the Human Body in Starvation and 



What Causes it 123 



8. The Artificial Osmotic Structure 126 



9. The Imitation of the Form of Certain Plants and Animals by 



Artificial Osmotic Structures; Influence of Gravity upon 

 Artificial Growth 136 



10. Movements of Natural and Artificial Plants. Artificial 



Structures Growing Outside Solution 147 



11. What we can Learn from the Experiments with Artificial 



Structures 150 



Summary 152 



The Fourth Approach: The Animal a Machine 153 



1. Energy Output and Mechanism of Action 155 



2. Amoeba and its Movement 157 



3. Amoeboid Movement of Oil-Drops 161 



4. Oil-Drops Extracted from Brain of Freshly Killed Animals.. . 174 



5. Degeneration, Poisoning, Suffocation, and Starvation in Man, 



Animal, Amoeba . . . and in the Oil-Drop 180 



6. Artificial Cells and Politics 182 



7. Nerves and Muscles 186 



8. The Nature of the Nerve Impulse 188 



9. The Production of Electric Charges and of Electric Currents 



in Living Tissue L94 



10. The Mode of Action of Poisons and Drugs 199 



Entr' Acte 2(H 



Artificial Parthenogenesis 205 



The Mitogenetic Rays 209 



Epilogue 215 



