90 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE 



diminished. The same phenomenon is already well known 

 for muscle, which of course similarly has its optimum, beyond 

 which the response is diminished. Again, just as the 

 fatigue of muscle is removed by rest, or by the gentle 

 mechanical vibration of massage, or by variation of 

 temperature, as by a warm bath, so is it essentially with 

 the iron oxide. For this ' fatigue/ i.e. the diminution of 

 response, can be removed by treatments exactly parallel. 



Next as to the effect of the injection of foreign sub- 

 stances. Potassium, as we have seen, has great electric 

 elasticity, and recovers from stimuli almost at once. But 

 when it is treated with certain foreign substances, its first 

 response appears unaltered, but in subsequent responses the 

 power of recovery is almost lost. Similarly with the effect 

 of certain poisons (e.g. veratine) upon muscle. 



In all the phenomena above described continuity is not 

 broken. It is difficult to draw a line and say, ' here the physical 

 phenomenon ends and the physiological begins,' or ' that is a 

 phenomenon of dead matter, and this is a vital phenomenon 

 peculiar to the living.' These lines of demarcation would be 

 quite arbitrary. 



We may explain each of the above categories of phenomena 

 by making a great number of independent hypotheses, or else 

 discovering a constant property of matter common to all its 

 forms, living and organised, dead and inorganic ; we may attempt 

 on the basis of this common property, an explanation of the 

 different phenomena, which at first seem so very different. And 

 in favour of this latter view we may invoke the general tendency 

 of science to seek, wherever facts permit, a fundamental unity 

 amidst the apparent diversity. 



Bose's paper came as a great surprise ; and the Secretary 

 of the Congress declared that he ' at first felt stunned.' 

 The meeting soon realised the full importance of the 

 subject, and many of its members expressed themselves 

 enthusiastically over the new results. The paper was 

 regarded as one of the most important received by the 

 Congress, and it was published in its volume. 



