FERTILISATION 189 



others, have shown that when fat is burnt this figure should be 

 in the vicinity of 3'3, when protein 3'2, and for carbohydrate 2'9. 

 Meyerhof could find no carbohydrate in the egg, and there was no 

 destruction of protein, but sufficient fat was found in the eggs to 

 give the quotient observed. 



The most important fact arising from Meyerhofs experiments 

 was that whether he took the unfertilised egg, the fertilised, or 

 the fertilised >egg treated with phenylurethane, in which cell 

 division had been inhibited, the value of his calorific quotient was 

 always the same. If any of the chemical energy liberated in 

 the egg, as the result of the oxygen consumption, was utilised in 

 any of the processes of morphogenesis, these values could not 

 be the same in every instance. In the case of fresh sperm, the 

 calorific quotient was 3-1, or something approaching normal. The 

 evidence both of the oxygen consumption and the heat liberation 

 of the developing egg, then, seems to show there is little direct 

 connection between the oxidations taking place, and the appearance 

 of visible morphological structure, and this is borne out by the 

 calorific quotient, which is the same for the fertilised segmenting 

 and the unfertilised egg. 



If the energy of the egg is not employed in this manner how is it 

 utilised? Warburg 1 suggests that it is used in performing work 

 which is indispensable to the life of the cell. Thus it might be used 

 in keeping certain constituents of the cytoplasm apart, holding the 

 cell-membrane intact and semipermeable, in which respect the 

 electric charge on the surface plays so important a part as 

 the experiments of Girard 2 show. That the cytoplasm of egg- 

 cell in the living state is sharply divided into a number of 

 regions, in which different reactions are taking place, has been 

 clearly demonstrated by the microdissection methods of Chambers, 3 

 Kite, 4 Barber, 5 and Seifriz. 6 These, then, are a few of the ways 

 in which this energy of the cell might be utilised. 



It has been long recognised by morphologists that cellular 

 structure is no criterion of organisation, for many of the Protozoa 



1 Warburg, "Beitrage zur Physiologic der Zellen," Ergebnisse der Physi- 

 ologic, vol. xiv., 1914. 



2 Girard, "Scheme physique pour servir a 1'etude de la nutrition minerale 

 de la cellule," Compt. Rend. Acad. de Science Paris, vol. clxviii., 1919. 



3 Chambers (E.), " Microdissection Studies," I. and II., Amer. Jour, of Physiol., 

 vol. xliii., 1917, and Jour, of Exp. Zool., vol. xxiii., 1917. 



4 Kite, "Studies on the Physical Properties of Protoplasm," Amer. Jour. 

 of Physiol., vol. xxxii., 1913. 



5 Barber, "The Pipette Method in the Isolation of Single Micro- 

 organisms and in the Inoculation of Substances into the Living Cells," Phillip. 

 Jour. Science, vol. ix., 1914. 



Seifriz, "Viscosity Values of Protoplasm as Determined by Micro- 

 dissection," Bot. Oaz., vol. Ixx., 1920. 



