106 STUDIES IN ELECTRO-PHYSIOLOGY: 



It now remains to be seen whether I am in any way 

 justified in applying the term " electrical unit " to any 

 animal cell. 



Supposing the single centrosome to be an electrified 

 body, no electrical action of attraction or repulsion could 

 take place within it while it remained single, 

 but before any cell -reproduction can begin 

 it is duplicated, and duplicated in a very 

 peculiar form, the fibrils having dot-like 

 enlargements at intervals. 



In the diagram the dark spots represent 

 the centrioles, and if, as I imagine, they 

 are bodies similarly electrified, the immedi- 

 Fig. 16. ate result would be the exercise of repulsion 

 between the two, and consequent elongation of the cell. 

 Dividing the centrioles is a clear space over which 

 repulsion would first be exercised. 



In Schafer two diagrams are given to illustrate the 

 changes which occur in the centrosomes and nucleus of a 

 cell during the process of mitotic division : 



Fig. 17. 



Up to the point shown in A, repulsion seems to continue, 

 and we are told that " the spindle-fibres appear to form 

 directing lines, along which the chromosomes pass, after 

 the cleavage, towards the nuclear poles to form the daughter 

 nuclei." It would seem, however, that the repulsive force 

 had reached its limit and that no further elongation of the 

 cell was necessary, because at an intermediate stage 



