LOGARITHMIC ORDER OF DEATH 



49 



TABLE 8 



Dependance of the death rate on the rates of injury and of repaii*. 

 Each figure represents the per cent of the cells which survived at the 

 end of the previous time unit. 



When the process of injury is accelerated 10 times while the 

 decrease of the repair rate remains the same, the corresponding 

 figures are: 



sume, loses half of its efficiency per hour. Thus, repair 

 during the second hour is only 20% while injury con- 

 tinues its constant rate of 50%, which results in the death 

 of 50-20 = 30% during the second hour. In the third 

 hour, with repair decreased to 10%, 40% die. The fur- 

 ther stages are shown in Table 8. 



The second half of this table shows what happens if 

 death is much more rapid. It is assumed that injury 

 has become 10 times as fast, so that 50% of all cells are 

 now injured in 6 minutes instead of in 60 minutes. The 

 amount of repair possible in this short time is almost 

 negligible, even if we assume that injury of the synthesis 

 mechanism is not increased, and the percentage of cells 

 dying per time unit is now nearly constant from the be- 

 ginning. 



The Order of Death of Other Uni- 

 cellular Organisms. If death, i.e., loss of re- 



