548 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1914. 
liquid air and then for 77 hours to that of liquid hydrogen at 250° 
below zero, decorticated seeds previously dried, of lucern, mustard, 
and wheat, and spores of Mucor, Rhizopus, and Aspergillus, and of 
various bacteria inclosed in sealed tubes in which the most complete 
vacuum possible had been secured. : 
All these seeds at the end of one year, and the spores after two 
years in the vacuum, showed a high percentage of germination. 
In this particular case in which the cell was deprived of water and 
gas, in which its diastases were desiccated, and the protoplasm lost 
its state ot colloid solution, at least while they were under the simul- 
taneous influence of desiccation and low temperatures, one can hardly 
say that latent life is relaxed life. 
Life without water, without air, without gaseous exchanges, 
without colloid molecules, in suspension in a liquid, appears to me 
paradoxical. The vital phenomena of assimilation and of proto- 
plasmic disassimilation being rendered temporarily impossible, I 
believe that the real latent life such as Claude Bernard conceived it, 
that is to say, the suspension of life, under these particular conditions 
has been realized. 
VIII. THE PHYSIOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE SUSPENSION OF 
LIFE. 
If that is the case, the law of the continuity of vital phenomena is 
dealt a severe blow. In fact, the phenomena of life, which since their 
appearance on earth have been transmitted without interruption 
from generation to generation during millions of centuries, with 
only occasional retardation in the germs, have now for the first time, 
under the influence of exceptional conditions, been interrupted in 
certain cells, without injury to their power of resuscitation. More- 
over, these facts demonstrate that one can not confound an organism 
wholly inert during latent life with a dead organism. Although on 
examination a dried seed and a dead seed appear identical, there is a 
great difference between them. The protoplasm of the dead seed 
has undergone an irrevertible chemical modification, such that if it 
be placed in conditions favorable for its development, none of the 
physical and chemical phenomena of assimilation and disassimilation 
can longer be produced. . 
On the contrary, the protoplasm of the seed in latent life, under the 
combined action of the vacuum, desiccation, and cold has received 
only a physical modification which has in no way altered its chemical 
composition. It is a revertible modification which it has undergone, 
since if there be restored to it water, gases, and the proper tempera- 
ture, its substances again take on their properties and all the physico- 
chemical phenomena of its vital activity reappear. ‘The experimental 
1 Paul Becquerel: C. R. Acad. of Sc., Apr. 19, 1909, and May 30, 1910. 
