1POST-STIMULANT AND POST-MORTEM ACTIVITY 61 



epithelium secretes enzymes and corrodes starch- 

 grains. Isolated fragments of swarm-spores move, 

 and of cytoplasm stream, while Demoor found that 

 nuclei continued their mitosis after the protoplasm 

 was killed by CO 2 or chloroform. 



" Again, isolated leaves of Drosera continue active, 

 translocation takes place in heads of cereals, and 

 ripening in fruits after separation from their parent 

 plant, and oak-galls continue their internal metabolic 

 changes when removed from the tree." * 



Gautier has made a study of post-mortem life 

 as embodied in his paper, " Sur les produits de le 

 vie residuelle des tissus en particulier du tissu 

 musculaire separe de Fetre vivant." f 



Post-stimulant activity is well seen in the case 

 of the heart stimulated through its accelerator or 

 augmentor nerves. After a latent period (anabolic 

 inertia) its rhythm is accelerated (affectability), and 

 when this has been going on for some time, if the 

 stimulus be suddenly cut off, the heart continues to 

 beat at the higher rhythm for some time, thirty 

 seconds in frog-heart : this post-stimulant period 

 is due to katabolic inertia. 



But a post-stimulant effect an after-effect- 

 may of course also be one of no action, provided the 

 effect of stimulation has been inhibition or arrest of 

 function. 



In the heart of the cold-blooded frog or tortoise 

 this is very well seen : an inhibitory stimulus is 



* Macdougall, " Vegetable Physiology/' p. 64. 



f Gautier and L. Landi, Comp. Rend., vol. cxiv. 1892, p. 1312. 



