CHAPTER XXI 

 LUMINOUS ORGANS 



This book opened with a discussion on the action of Hght upon hving 

 organisms ; a suitable postscript to this Vohime is a passing (but not an 

 exhaustive) reference to the opposite process — the production of hght by 

 organisms. Moreover, many luminous organs, although not homologous 

 with eyes, have a structure so similar that a short description of the 

 phenomenon of bioluminescence can hardly fail to interest the reader. 



Bioluininescence is one of the most fascinating subjects in biology and it is not 

 surprising that the emission of hght by hving creatures attracted attention from very 

 early times. The luminescence of rotting vegetation and putrid flesh was known to 

 Aristotle and classical writers such as Pliny wrote in detail of the phenomenon as seen 

 in fungi on land and marine animals which are responsible for the phosphorescence 

 of the sea. The early literature is full of delightful descriptions of the beauty of some 

 of the observed phenomena, but modern work may be said to have begun with the 

 French and Italian naturalists, A, de Quatrefages, whose classical works appeared 

 between 1843 and 1862, and P. Panceri, whose observations were published between 

 1870 and 1878. It is interesting that Max Schultze, the great anatomist of Bonn, 

 published a detailed account of the luminous organ of the fire-fly, Lampyris splendidula 

 (1865). More recently the researches of Raphael Dubois who published some 56 

 important papers between 1884 and the appearance of the masterly svimmary of his 

 ideas on the j^roduction of animal light in Richet's Dictionnaire de Physiologie (1928), 

 laid the foundations of otir biochemical knowledge of the problem ; most of his 

 classical work was done on the mollusc, Pholas, and from experiments on the elaterid 



beetle he conceived the idea that the pro- 

 duction of light was caused by the inter- 

 action between an oxidizable compound, 

 luciferin, and an oxidizing enzyine, luci- 

 ferase. In modern times the foundations 

 laid by Dubois have been consolidated by 

 the Dutch School associated particularly 

 with the names of A. J. Kluyver and K. L. 

 van Schouwenburg of Delft, and to a still 

 greater extent by E. Newton Harvey 

 1887 — ), Professor of Biology at Princeton 

 University (Fig. 883). Harvey has made 

 the subject of bioluminescence his life-study, 

 not only by elucidating the complicated 

 chemistry which underlies the production 

 of light, but also by travelling far and wide 

 over land and sea for over forty years with 

 all the enthvisiasm of a born naturalist, ob- 

 serving the phenomena in the native haunts 

 of light -producing animals. His impressive 

 output of over 80 papers on this subject 



730 



Fig. 



883. — E. Newton Harvey 

 (1887 ). 



