CHAPTER XII 



FUSION MASSES 

 OF WHOLE STENTORS 



Repeated and cumulative grafting of stentors made possible the 

 formation of relatively huge fusion masses of stentor protoplasm. 

 These cytoplasmic continuums made from many cells are unique 

 among biological phenomenon, and their potentialities for con- 

 tributing to our understanding of the organism have by no means 

 been exhausted. At present we can at least describe the response 

 of Stentor when confronted with the problem of organizing a far 

 greater than normal mass of protoplasm. The same forces of 

 mending, adhesion, and integration which hold the single stentor 

 together conspire in masses to make enduring unions, and there 

 is little indication that pathologies arise which would obscure or 

 preclude the expression of morphogenetic potentialities. 



In fact, Stentor masses often live longer than single individuals 

 under the same circumstances, perhaps for the reason that larger 

 aggregates have more substance to draw upon under conditions of 

 relative starvation. Up to the last day or two of their life, the 

 masses remain active and apparently healthy, and there is no 

 reason to suspect that they die from any other cause than starvation. 

 Large masses may not even suffer from reduced surface in relation 

 to volume as interfering with exchange of oxygen and carbon 

 dioxide ; for they take the shape of pancakes about as thick as the 

 normal cell so that, as in the erythrocyte, every point of the interior 

 retains a fairly normal access to the surrounding medium. The 

 problems of these complexes therefore seem to be more morpho- 

 logical than physiological and they survive long enough to show 

 much of what they can do. 



I. Simple masses and biotypes 



We begin with the simplest combinations of only two or a few 

 more cells, something of the behavior of which has already been 



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