I. THE STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION OF PROTOPLASM 43 



current, and the formations of spindle fibres which pull daughter chro- 

 mosomes. Detailed discussions on these phemomena will be made in 

 part IV. 



Many particles known to be present physiologically, such as mito- 

 chondria and microsomes referred to above, may be a kind of elemen- 

 tary body itself or its combined products, existing normally in a coag- 

 ulated state. It may, however, be unreasonable to consider that such 

 particles are always present in a coagulated state. According to Ris 

 and Mirsky (5), the living interphase nucleus is optically homogeneous, 

 chromosomal structures appearing after injury and after treatment with 

 most histological fixations. In the living nucleus the chromosomes are 

 present in a greatly extended state, filling the entire nucleus homogene- 

 ously ; upon injury the chromosomes condensed and become visible, 

 suggesting that the visible chromosomes are the conglomerates of co- 

 agulated elementary bodies. 



The reasons wherefore the writer has formed the above mentioned 

 opinion as regards the protoplasm structure may become comprehended 

 gradually as the description proceeds. 



2. The Action of Protoplasm 



Analogy present between the protein synthesis and crystal growth 

 has for a long time arrested attention of a number of workers. Hau- 

 rowitz considered protein synthesis or protoplasm growth as follows (6): 

 The template is formed in protoplasm by a protein molecule identical 

 with the protein to be formed, but present in an expanded state, the 

 amino acids which form the building stones of the replica are adsorbed 

 tyrosine to the tyrosyl residues of the template, arginine to arginyl, 

 and the other amino acids likewise to the corresponding residues, in 

 analogy to the process of crystallization, only molecules which are the 

 same as the molecules forming the crystal are adsorbed to the surface 

 of the crystal. 



As above mentioned, according to the writer's theory the proto- 

 plasm is in itself a crystal, but usually protoplasm fails to show the 

 double refraction, a characteristic of crystals, although occasionally it 

 shows this property especially when it is streaming. This may be at- 

 tributed to a partial contraction of proteins resulting in some irregu- 

 larity in the alignment of elementary bodies. There are good many 

 reasons to suppose, as will be mentioned later, that protoplasm pro- 

 tein molecules in the normal protoplasm are not completely stretched, 

 but exist in a partially contracted state. Anyhow, the protoplasm can 

 be looked upon as a type of liquid crystals and protein synthesis can 



