94 



LORANDE LOSS WOODRUFF. 



ever, that the accelerating effect of a given strength of alcohol 

 would not be continuous, so at period 43 another culture was 

 started line by line from culture P in identically the same way 

 except that the amount of alcohol administered was doubled, 

 each individual receiving one drop of 2/500 alcohol and four 

 drops of hay infusion. The rate of division of this series, desig- 

 nated culture l'\ at once greatly increased (see Fig. 2, line) 



and kept considerably above the control during the first twenty 

 days of the experiment. During the succeeding periods it fluc- 

 tuated above and below the control and at the present time is 

 dividing considerably faster than the control culture (Fig. 2 

 .... line). 



During the early part of culture 1"% there was again reason to 

 believe that the increase in the division rate would not be per- 

 manent, so still another culture (P''') was isolated from culture 

 P'' (during period 48), and was treated with double the amount 

 of alcohol to which the parent culture was subjected, that is, 

 with one drop of 4/500 alcohol and four drops of hay infusion. 

 The result was still again an initial increase in the rate of division, 

 though of shorter duration, followed by fluctuations above and 

 below the control series (Fig. 2, line). 



In view of the fact that culture P showed a practically uniform 

 depression of the division rate when subjected to alcohol, it was 

 thought that possibly the depression effect which secondarily 

 appeared in cultures P, P", and P'*', might be due to the fact that 

 the culture as a whole again had attained a period in the life cycle 

 when alcohol had a depressing effect on cell division and, there- 

 fore, that the falling ofi" of the rate of division of the organisms, 

 after being a certain length of time subjected to the alcohol, was 

 not due to the animals becoming accustomed to the alcohol. 

 To test this point another culture (I'') was isolated from the con- 

 trol (I) and carried for three periods of five days each on one 

 drop of 1/500 alcohol and four drops of hay infusion. During 

 this time the division rate of culture I' was consistently accelerated 

 and as greatly as that of culture P"^' which was receiving four 

 times as much alcohol, thus showing that the results obtained in 

 the alcohol experiments were due to "acclimatization," and not 

 to the fact that the organisms were in a period of the cycle char- 

 acterized by a changed susceptibility to alcohol. 



