300 IV. THE PRINCIPLES OF LIFE PHENOMENA 



Such oscillation phenomena would not be revealed if each mole- 

 cule changed its structure arbitrarily of its own accord and the 

 mutual connection failed to prevent the arbitrary behaviour. Since, 

 in the protoplasm, the component proteins are mutually associated in 

 most orderly way, the oscillation phenomena must be much more 

 manifest than in a mere solution of proteins. Indeed, this seems 

 actually the case. Thus, oscillation or rhythmic contractibility appears 

 to be an essential property of all forms of protoplasm as in heart 

 muscle, intestine, -the -diaphragma, and in many unicellular organisms 

 such as leucocytes, swimming protozoa, and myxomycetes. Its finest 

 demonstration may be seen in the oscillating motion of cilia and 

 flagella. 



2. Resorption and Excretion 



The writer has found a series of facts with which vital pheno- 

 mena of resorption and excretion appear to be closely connected (134). 

 In this section a discussion will be made on experimental results 

 concerning the facts carried out with sugar and virus particles. 



A heavy water suspension of vaccinia virus particles isolated by 

 our isoelectric-point precipitating method is mixed with the same 

 volume of sugar solution (glucose and fructose) of varying concentra- 

 tions, and after left for 30 minutes at laboratory temperature the 

 particles are precipitated by centrifugation. With the supernatant 

 fluid the sugar concentration is measured, and at the same time a 

 similar manipulation is carried out with the sugar solution mixed 

 with the same volume of water instead of the virus suspension, and 

 then from the difference between these two measured concentrations 

 the rate of the penetration of the sugar into the particles is es- 

 timated. 



There seems to exist in the particles a space into which sugar 

 fails to penetrate, and this space is designated as sugar-insoluble 

 space. Relations between such spaces and the sugar concentrations 

 are shown in Fig. 28, Usually curves like GI or FI shown in this 

 Fig. are obtained when virus particles isolated by an ordinary way 

 are used, showing that both glucose and fructose can penetrate, to 

 some extent, into the particles when their concentrations are high, 

 the rate of penetration being directly proportional to the concentra- 

 tions. As the water quantity combined with dried virus particles 

 may be about 10 times as great as the latter, the sugar-insoluble space 

 will be about 10 when no penetration occurs, and hence values smaller 

 than 10 may indicate the occurrence of the penetration of sugars in 



