^6 LORANDE LOSS WOODRUFF. 



V. Does Alcohol Cause a General Lowering of Resist- 

 ance TO Changes in the Environment? 

 Experiments to determine if treatment with alcohol will cause 

 a general " lowering of resistance " to inimical changes in the 

 environment are in progress, and the experiments described in 

 this paper outline the method which is being employed in such 



a study. 



For this work certain of the previously described cultures are 



being used, viz., 



Paraviecium . Stylonychia. 



I = hay infusion. I r= hay infusion. 



12 = hay infusion + 1/2,500 alcohol. Ii= hay infusion -f- 1/2,500 alcohol. 



I2a _ hay infusion + 2/2,500 alcohol. I- = hay infusion -f 2/2,500 alcohol. 



I2»'=hay infusion + 4/2,500 alcohol. 



On December 21, 1907, an individual was isolated from each 

 line of the first three Paramecium cultures and from each line of 

 the three Stylonychia cultures, and treated in identically the same 

 way as the culture from which they were taken except that each 

 was subjected to one part of copper sulphate in 1,250,000 parts 

 of culture medium.^ For example, the culture \l isolated from 

 Paramecium P received daily three drops of hay infusion plus 

 one drop of 1/500 alcohol plus one drop of 1/250,000 copper sul- 

 phate, i. e., it received one drop of 1/250,000 copper sulphate in 

 place of one of the drops of hay infusion received by culture I'. 



The six cultures isolated were then as follows : 



Paramecium. Stylonychia. 



le = hay infusion -f- 1/1,250,000 CuSO,. Ic = hay infusion +1/1,250,000 CuSO,. 



II = hay infusion + 1/2,500 alcohol + I^^hay infusion + 1/2,500 alcohol + 



1/1,250,000 CuSO,. 1/1,250,000 CuSO,. 



]??=r hay infusion + 2/2,500 alcohol -\- ly = hay infusion + 2/2,500 alcohol + 



1/1,250,000 CuSO^- ' 1/1,250,000 CuSO^. 



The results of these experiments are plotted in Figs. 4-7. These 

 curves show that, in the experiments on Paramecium, the alco- 

 hol-treated cultures (Figs. 5, 6) died out under the administration 

 of copper sulphate during the fifth period of experimentation, that 



1 Various solutions of copper sulphate were tried and the one employed was 

 selected because it appeared to be the maximum strength which all the cultures could 

 withstand. 



