108 GERMINATION 



sluggishly smoulder or suddenly blaze. A muscle at rest 

 is smouldering, a muscle in its contraction is blazing ; the 

 consumption of carbohydrate and the production of CO^ 

 never absolutely in abeyance, even in the most profound 

 state of rest, are sharply intensified when the living machine 

 puts forth its full power ; and there is then a sudden burst 

 of heat, and an electrical discharge, by reason of an electro- 

 positive state of the active muscle giving birth to a current 

 of action which, in effect, you may without great stretch 

 of thought, regard as of the family of ' blaze-currents.' 

 So that in last resort we find that these striking electrical 

 effects in living matter that we had hardly considered electro- 

 motive at all — in the eyeball, in its crystalline lens, in a 

 bean or pea or leaf or flower — are, after all, intense local 

 changes, significant of intense local action, that may be 

 imagined and characterised as a blaze amid the smouldering 

 state of living matter. 



" There is a certain similarity between a ' blaze-current ' 

 and the discharge of an electrical organ — ^no very close and 

 detailed resemblance indeed, yet one that cannot be ignored." 



I 'propose to offer evidence to show that the currents mentioned 

 by Dr. Waller have no such origin as that attributed to them, 

 that they are simply manifestations of air-charge and that the 

 so-called " blaze-currents " are nothing more than exhibitions 

 of the electrostatic capacity of the objects or substances under 

 examination. 



First of all, however, we might see what Professor Bose 

 has to say upon the subject, bearing in mind that as the 

 potential and sign of the air-charge are liable to variation 

 the response of capacity to that charge must also vary, 

 so that it is the exception rather than the rule to find two 

 sets of observers in agreement. Professor Bose says :* 

 " I allude to the so-called ' blaze-current ' of Dr. Waller. 

 By this is meant an after-current in the same direction as 

 the exciting current. . . i The intensity of this 

 homodromous after-effect was thus dependent on the degree 

 of vitality of the tissue under experiment. Hermann and 



^Comparative Electro-Physiology. 



