No. 3, December, 1920] PHYSIOLOGY I'll 



PHYSIOLOGY 



B. M. Duggar, Editor 

 Carroll W. Dodge, Assistant Editor 



GENERAL 



1306. Brierlet, W. B. Some concepts in mycology — an attempt at synthesis. Trans. 

 British Mycolog. Soc. 6: 204-235. 1919. — The author advocates for fungi, both parasitic and 



saprophytic, the physiological species concept, rather than merely a morphological descrip- 

 tion — the latter assuming that form is primarily constant and hereditary. The author points 

 out that organisms apparently similar morphologically may possess properties wholly distinct 

 and individual when investigated quantitatively with respect to behavior and metabolic 

 activity. lie also deplores the idea so frequently advanced to the effect that physiological 

 or biochemical attributes are inconstant. [See Bot. Absts. 4, Entry 1061; also anonymous 

 abstract in Nature 104: 708. 1920.]—/?. M. Duggar. 



PROTOPLASM, MOTILITY 



1307. Galippe, V. Recherches sur revolution du protoplasma de certaines cellules vege- 

 tales par le procede de la culture. [A study of the transformations of the protoplasm of certain 

 plant cells by the culture method.] Compt. Rend. Acad. Sci. Paris 170: 342-345. 1920. — 

 Fragments of the epidermis of petals of various flowers were aseptically removed and placed 

 from one to seventy-two hours in distilled sterile water saturated with ether or oxygenated. 

 The tissue was then sectioned and stained. It was found that the protoplasm contracts and 

 fragments. In these fragments are to be found small bodies, called "microzymas," which 

 the author considers are the living parts of the protoplasm. These bodies give rise to ovoid 

 and rod-shaped bacilli which persist in the cells for some time. — C. H. and W. K. Farr. 



1308. Lillie, Ralph S. The nature of protoplasmic and nervous transmission. Jour. 

 Phys. Chem. 24: 165-191. 1920. — Nervous transmission is only a special case of protoplasmic 

 transmission. The surface layer of protoplasm is exceedingly responsive to outer conditions 

 and local stimulation evokes prompt response by the entire surface. This is particularly 

 true in cited cases of blood corpuscles and fertilized eggs. These and many other, if not most 

 other, reactions do not depend upon transfer of materials for the propagation of stimuli. It 

 seems to the author unlikely that so general a phenomenon should be confined to living matter, 

 which leads to the question of the general type of physico-chemical process to which proto- 

 plasmic transmission belongs. The essential generalizations established regarding nervous 

 transmission are summarized as: (1) the excitation state may be initiated by a variety of 

 means, (2) once aroused, the excitation state is transmitted continuously with no decrease 

 in intensity from one region of tissue to an adjoining region, (3) local response ceases when 

 stimulation ceases, (4) the rate of transmission is very different in different tissues and organ- 

 isms, (5) velocity in any case is dependent on temperature (the 10° temperature coefficient 

 being between 2 and 3), (6) transmission may be influenced reversibly by chemical sub- 

 stances, (7) transmission is not accompanied by change in form, by evident change in tem- 

 perature, or by optical change, but is always accompanied by a change in electrical potential 

 which travels (forming an action current) at the same rate as the activation wave. These 

 generalizations, the general close correlation between local rate of development of action- 

 currents in different tissues, and the rate of propagation of the excitation wave, the prompt- 

 ness with which rapidly conducting tissues respond and vice versa (indicating the adjustment 

 of the tissue to electric currents having peculiarities of its own action-currents) and recent 

 evidence pointing to the great influence exerted by the conductivity of the medium surround- 

 ing the nerve leads the author to conclude that "transmission is essentially a case of secondary 

 electrical stimulation," stimulation "always being initiated at a certain linear distance in 

 advance of the already stimulated active area." The next question of how electric currents 

 stimulate protoplasm involves a consideration of the chemical changes at the surface. Any 



BOTANICAL ABSTRACTS, VOL. VI, NO. 3 



