EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL ON INFUSORIA. lOI 



in that it is more easily oxidized than the products of the bac- 

 teria, and therefore the alcohol-treated lines are able to assimilate 

 more food, I think the fact that the increased division rate of the 

 alcoholized lines is not permanent, but gradually declines and 

 falls below the division rate of the control, suggests that the effect 

 of the alcohol must be more subtle. Again the decrease in the 

 rate of cell division due to alcohol at the early period of the 

 cycle is not so readily explained on the assumption that alcohol 

 is a "food" for the organisms in question. 



It is obvious that the movements of the organisms in the 

 culture medium is considerably more rapid, as a rule, when 

 treated with alcohol. This might suggest, since food is largely 

 received through vortex currents passing down the peristome, 

 that more food is thus secured ; but I believe that this sug- 

 gestion is answered negatively by the fact that alcohol does not 

 have a consistently accelerating action. 



It might be suspected that an osmotic change brought about 

 by the strength of alcohol used would be sufficient to influence 

 the division rate of the infusoria, but the osmotic change is so 

 exceedingly small that there is no reason to believe, from what 

 is known of the effects of the phenomenon on the cleavage of 

 eggs, etc., that any effect in this case is to be attributed to it. 



As far as the experiments go I believe that they indicate that 

 alcohol has a stimulating effect on some aspect of metabolism — 

 possibly, as Calkins has suggested in this connection, on the 

 secreting activities of the protoplasm. I think the evidence 

 derived from the experiments justifies the idea that, in the case 

 of the forms studied, alcohol supplies no "energy," so to speak, 

 but stimulates the liberation of the "initial of potential" with 

 which the organism is endowed. 



In other words, we are justified in looking upon the protozoan 

 cell as possessing a certain amount of metabolic energy, or it 

 might be termed "division energy." In the normal course 

 of the cycle, this is gradually expended in reaching the num- 

 ber of generations, more or less, for which the individual is 

 endowed ; but when alcohol, for example, is encountered in the 

 environment this tends, directly or indirectly, toward a more 

 rapid liberation of the division energy with the result that 



