281 



by an increase of permeability and it does not involve a 

 loss of the adsorption capacity. 



Twenty-five years later, Maximov (1938) held about 

 the same fundamental views. The withdrawal of water 

 during- freezing would cause an alteration in the proto- 

 plasmic colloids; in particular, it w^ould increase per- 

 meability. He could, in leaves, determine an increase in 

 cell permeability which paralleled the degree of wilting 

 and, consequently, he considers freezing and wilting as 

 similar in their injurious action. 



KyJ'ni (1!U7) reported that various algae, for which 

 the temperature of death by freezing in sea water was 

 previously recorded, were killed at temperatures above 

 freezing when the increasing concentration of the water 

 in w^hich they were immersed was high enough to have 

 the same freezing point as the water in which the algae 

 were killed by freezing. Accordingly death of the or- 

 ganisms is attributed to the concentration resulting from 

 freezing and not to the congelation itself. 



Moran (1929), who worked mostly with isolated frog's 

 muscles, remarks that neither cold alone kills, as is 

 shown by the well known innocuousness of subcooling, 

 nor does the formation of a relatively large quantity of 

 ice in a tissue, since muscles left for -1-8 hours in the 

 frozen state at -1.5° (freezing point -0.42-) were ir- 

 ritable after thawing. Having rejected these two in- 

 terpretations, he points out that it is the removal by 

 freezing of more than a certain critical quantity of water 

 wiiich seems to be fatal, as is shown by the fact that a 

 muscle loses its power to react to an electric stimulus 

 when frozen at a temperature lower than - 1.9°. 



Comparing these results with those obtained in his 

 study of death by desiccation, namely, that it was im- 

 possible to revive a muscle in which 78% or more of the 

 water content had been removed, he pointed out that the 

 temperature of death by freezing was precisely the 

 freezing point of a solution of sodium chloride which was 



