BIO-RADIOACTIVITY, EOBES, RADIOBES 79 



♦' The cellular form of these precipitates," said Rudge, '• is prob- 

 ably due to the circumstance that the gelatine is liquefied by the 

 action of the salt, and each particle of precipitate is formed about a 

 core of gelatine, so that the layer of barium sulfate forms a kind of 

 sac or cell which is surrounded by the solutions of the salt in the 

 liquefied gelatine. This ' cell ' may be permeable to the liquefied 

 gelatine containing a salt in solution, which, passing through the 

 cell-wall, causes an expansion to take place, the limit of growth 

 being controlled by some surface tension effect." No trace of a 

 nucleus or of mitosis was observed under the very highest magnifi- 

 cation, and " cells " under a cover-glass sealed down with cement 

 were observed to suffer no alteration during four months. 



Reference to the extreme claims noted in the literature above 

 cited may be fittingly concluded by the following quotation from 

 Lord Kelvin : ^' 



" But let not youthful minds be dazzled by the imaginings of the 

 daily newspapers that because Berthelot and others have . . . made 

 foodstuffs they can make living things, or that there is any prospect 

 of a process being found in any laboratory for making a living thing, 

 whether the minutest germ of bacteriology or anything smaller or 

 greater." 



Bibliography 

 The Supposed Radioactivity of Plants and Wood 



1. Becquerel, P. Recherche sur la radioactivite vegetale. Compt. Rend. 



Acad. Sci. Paris 140 : 54. 1905. 



2. Greene, A. B. A note on the action of radium on microorganisms. 



Proc. Roy. Soc. London 73: 375. 1904. 



3. Lambert. Emission des rayons de Blondlot au cours de Taction des 



ferments soluble. Compt. Rend. Acad. Sci. Paris 138 : 196, 1904. 



4. Meyer, E. Emission de rayons N par les vegetaux. Compt. Rend. 



Acad. Sci. Paris 138: loi. 1904. 



5. Russell, W. J. The action of wood on a photographic plate in the dark. 



Nature 70: 531. 1904. Proc. Roy. Soc. London 74: 131. 1904. 



6. . On the action of wood on a photographic plate. Nature 73 : 



152. 1905. 



6a. . The action of resin and allied bodies on a photographic plate 



in the dark. Proc. Roy. Soc. London, 80 B : 376. 1908. 



7. Tarchanoff, I., & Moldenhauer, T. Sur la radio-activite induite et 



naturelle des plantes et sur son role probable dans la croissance 

 des plantes. Note preliminaire. Bull. Internat. Acad. Sci. Cracovie 

 No. 9, 728. 1905. 



