486 DAVID H. DOLLEY 



the resting cell and the working cell is integrated towards the 

 building up of chromatin as at least the principal representative 

 of the end products, if not the end product, whose breaking down 

 furnishes directly the energy of work. For the functioning cell, 

 all the changes that happen after the first stage of proportionate 

 increase represent an attempt to restore the metabolic balance 

 between the same substances which has then become disturbed 

 as a result of the overdrain under continuous stimulation. In 

 terms of chromatin, the consumption of cytoplasmic chromatin 

 (Nissl substance) exacted from the nucleus, comes to exceed the 

 supply available for energy of work, the cytoplasm being the 

 bearer of function; this makes an increased demand on the 

 nucleus; the nucleus, always relatively more affected, is forced 

 to fall back on its reserve and to exact in turn reserve material 

 from the cytoplasm, its only source, and so it undergoes a func- 

 tional hypertrophy; this reacts on the cytoplasm, thus forced to 

 synthesize more materials for the nucleus and it hypertrophies 

 in turn; the balance is to a degree restored and there results a 

 renewal of the chromatin supply. Finally, when the reserve 

 is exhausted, the cytoplasm exacts the residual chromatin from 

 the karyosome of the nucleus, and the nucleus, unable to contrib- 

 ute to further synthesis, and denuded of its own, is left exhausted. 

 Yet, throughout, the measurable constancy in the shifts in abso- 

 lute and relative size, each shift interpretable of a purposeful 

 significance in the interchange of material between plasma and 

 nucleus, declares the whole reaction, reserve on reserve, a quan- 

 titative one on an exact physico-chemical basis. 



Depression, the antithesis of activity, is its diametric quantita- 

 tive opposite. The genesis of depression is to be found in the 

 breakdown of the plasma in its reciprocal relation to the nucleus. 

 It loses the power to synthesize raw food material as proved by 

 yolk and glycogen deposit, and it loses the power to exact chro- 

 matin substances from the nucleus. As a result of the failure 

 of primary synthesis, the nucleus is unable to obtain elaborated 

 materials for its further synthesis, and the nucleolar substance, 

 the plastin, which is ordinarily used up in the formation of chro- 

 matin, instead now piles up in the nucleus. Chromatin for- 



