SPECIES IDENTITY OF NUCLEUS-PLASMA NORM 487 



mation ultimately stops entirely, a thing which becomes ob- 

 jectively very apparent when what was formed previously to 

 absolute depression becomes used up by the cytoplasm. As 

 a result of the progressive loss of power to resorb the chromatin 

 substances from the nucleus, both the residual chromatin of the 

 nucleus and some of the chromatin formed during the advance 

 of depression remain stored within the nucleus, in the latter 

 case a most obvious thing when it takes place in stages which 

 normally have no free chromatin outside the karj^osome proper. 

 This bare sketch will serve to indicate that there is a quantitative 

 increase of materials peculiar to the nucleus in depression, marked 

 in profound depression, and quite the opposite of the nuclear 

 exhaustion of activity, nucleolar substance to nucleolar substance, 

 chromatin to chromatin. 



A priori, therefore, it would be predicated that depression, 

 obviously a matter of blocking metabolism and consequently 

 affecting the resting cell as much as any functioning cell, would 

 change the nucleus-plasma ratio of the resting cell to make the 

 nucleus relatively larger. However, the eye alone could not 

 determine how great this increase of nuclear materials might 

 be in terms of quantity. It was definite enough that the nucleolar 

 substance was not diminished in depression, and as it was suffi- 

 cient for the general interpretation that the substance which in 

 activity becomes submerged and vanishes in the synthesis of 

 chromatin should remain at a standstill, it was preferred to err 

 on the side of caution and this remaining at a standstill was 

 emphasized, with the statement of actual increase as a probability 

 ('13 b). Indeed, I rather doubted that anything short of ex- 

 haustive measurements would bring out any tangible increase 

 in nuclear materials within the limits of technical variations of 

 measurement. 



Fortunately, one of the dogs killed for the purpose of measure- 

 ment showed a considerable degree of anatomical depression. 

 It was a most unexpected finding and there was no indication 

 of it in his outward behavior so far as a superficial scrutiny went. 

 However, this is by no means the first autogenous depression 

 that has been seen in animals undisturbed by experiment. Not 



