CHAPTER III 



THE PROPAGATION OF TRANSNATURATION 

 AND THE MULTIPLICATION OF VIRUSES 



1. Propagation of Transnaturation in 

 Protoplasm by Viruses 



In the opinion of the writer, virus particles are, either in their con- 

 struction or in their character, identical with elementary bodies of pro- 

 toplasm and consequently are a kind of assimilase. When protoplasm 

 is disintegrated into elementary bodies and in these bodies the original 

 structure of the protoplasm is retained, the bodies can act as assimilase 

 existing in a state of minute particles. 



Such an elementary body can act upon another assimilase, changing 

 the structure of the latter to be identical with it ; that is, it can exert 

 the "assimilase" action upon another assimilase if the latter is weaker 

 in action. An elementary body, however, shares no faculty to synthesize 

 from amino acids or from their components a protein which possesses 

 the same structure as that of the protein of which the elementary body 

 is composed. In other words, viruses can "assimiliz-a" other assimilases 

 whose action is weaker than that of their own, but cannot proliferate in 

 media containing no cells by synthesizing the protein. 



Thus, when a virus affects cell protoplasm whose assimilase action 

 is weaker than that of the virus, the protoplasm will be changed to 

 become identical with the virus, as shown in Fig. 9. The change may 

 start at the site where the virus contacts with the protoplasm and may 

 propagate successively to other parts until finally the spatial arrange- 

 ment of polar groups in the whole protoplasm protein is altered to be- 

 come identical with that of the virus, being followed occasionally by 

 the coagulation of protoplasm into elementary bodies. If the proto- 

 plasm is disintegrated into coagulated elementary bodies, these bodies 

 may be looked upon as virus particles. This is the principal way in 

 which the viruses multiply. 



Thus, since for the protoplasm to become identical in its structure 

 with a virus is to make the virus multiply in it, particle formation 

 is never essential for the multiplication, and accordingly viruses are 

 produced in the protoplasm irrespective of the occurrence or nonoc- 

 currence of decomposition of the protoplasm into minute particles. 



