776 



same way as the normal animal that we know. Such in reality is 

 the case with regard to the caesium-heart. Mesothorium-radiation 

 does not produce an appreciable influence. That a partial polonium- 

 radiation should cause any alteration cannot be expected, the organ 

 being enclosed in a pericardium, which largely obviates the pene- 

 tration of the tr-particles. 



This withheld me from trying it. Meanwhile emanation-circulation 

 may perhaps throw light upon this matter. 



When applying it, the contrast between caesium-ions and niton- 

 atoms, supplied by radium-emanation shows itself at once. When 

 both ions and atoms are, in appropriate quantity, in successive 

 perfusions without interval, brought to the surface of the cardiac 

 muscle-cells, and perhaps penetrate into them, then the presence of 

 ions or atoms alone will ensure pulsation, but when the same quan- 

 tities occur concomitantly, a standstill will be brought about after 

 a short wait. 



If, for instance, first a circulation fluid, in which from 40 to 80 

 mgrs of caesium-chloride per liter, is allowed to pass and directly 

 after it one with 150 Mache-units per liter, the vigorous caesium- 

 beats will first gradually slow down to quiescence and subsequently 

 be succeeded by emanation-pulsations. 



The latter, however, are less broad, most likely because the 

 calcium-dosis of the fluid is antagonised by the oligodynamic niton- 

 dosis (absence of tonus-equilibrium). 



So far as we are aware, the typical feature of the nitonatoms 

 is the charge they emit. This, at any rate, must be the immediate 

 agent, as the transformation-products, which the adsorbed atoms of 

 the dissolved emanation will produce during the first four days and 

 later on in an ever lessening amount, can hardly play a part in the 

 short experiments described by us. This warrants the conclusion, 

 that caesium will likewise produce a charge, but of the opposite 

 sign, and that the detected antagonism between caesium and eman- 

 ation rests on this difference of sign. ^) It appears, then, that here 

 also caesium must be classed among its homologues rubidium and 

 potassium, which like caesium send out charged ions of a sign 



Also a mutual adsorption- extrusion by which one metal repels the other from 

 the surface of the cardiac muscle-cells, may perhaps account for the antagonism 

 in the immediate proximity of the threshold of the two actions, premising that 

 both elements then are subliminal. But we took intentionally more than the 

 threshold of emanation (and later on of radium). Then, however, the adsorption- 

 interpretation falls through, as, indeed it also fails before the antagonism radiation- 

 uranium, with which our phenomenon is quite analogous. 



