6o FUNCTIONAL INERTIA 



With regard to muscles, Lagrange * points out 

 that muscles which have, for many years, been in 

 a state of ' training " remain in the status quo 

 although the strict life has been given up. 



With respect to the katabolic inertia of entire 

 organisms, Gamble f tells us, e.g., that certain prawns 

 change their colour to a blue during the night ; if 

 however they be kept in continuous light for a 

 sufficiently long time, they continue to change their 

 colour at their normal rhythm independently of 

 darkness altogether. 



Examples of post-stimulant activity in vegetable 

 protoplasm appear to be very numerous according 

 to Mr. R. A. Robertson J who thus writes : 

 " Passing on to consider the functional inertia of 

 excised and isolated organs, we again find no lack 

 of examples in consequence of the lower pitch of 

 vitality and greater individuality of plant proto- 

 plasts. As the wheel continues in virtue of its 

 inertia of motion to rotate, it may be for a con- 

 siderable time after the driving-gear is slipped, so 

 many plant organs and cell organoids continue to 

 function for a time when isolated. This is a mani- 

 festation of their katabolic inertia. Isolated chloro- 

 plasts, for example, assimilate for five hours, isolated 

 endosperm of Ricinus lives and carries on metabolic 

 change for six months." . . . " Isolated scutellar 



* Lagrange, " Physiology of Bodily Exercise/' p. 221. 

 t Gamble, Nature, vol. Ixii. Oct. n, 1900, p. 590. 

 t R. A. Robertson, "Latent Life of Plants," Trans. Bot. Soc. 

 Edin., Session Ixvi. 1902, p. 184. 



