148 LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JAGADIS C. BOSE 



his steps and escape internment. Two nephews, then also 

 in Germany, were less fortunate. 



He next visited America and lectured before a number 

 of the principal Universities there. He also addressed the 

 American Association for the Advancement of Science at 

 Philadelphia, and the New York and Washington Academies 

 of Science. At Washington he was invited to address 

 the State Department and also the Bureau of Agriculture, 

 where the great importance of his work in practical agri- 

 culture was fully realised. He lectured at Harvard before 

 the Departments of Philosophy and Psychology, and also 

 before Clark University, whose President, the well-known 

 psychologist, Dr. Stanley Hall, had been keenly interested 

 in Bose's work from his earliest publications. Everywhere 

 Bose's work received the warmest appreciation. 



We may now return to the phenomena of Irritability, 

 so successfully explored by the invention of Bose's new 

 instruments. It is, however, impossible to give in such 

 short space all the interesting results ; and it must suffice 

 to give a few extracts from Bose's popular lectures. 



One of his inquiries related to the physiological effect of 

 different gases on plants : 



According to popular science, what is death to the animal 

 is supposed to be life for the plant : for does it not flourish 

 in the deadly atmosphere of carbonic acid gas ? But instead 

 of flourishing, the plant gets suffocated just like a human being ; 

 note the relief on readmission of fresh air (Fig. 14). Only in 

 the presence of sunlight is the effect modified, by photo-synthesis. 

 In contrast to the effect of carbonic acid, ozone renders the 

 plant highly excitable. 



The plant is intensely susceptible to the impurities present 

 in the air. The vitiated air of the town has a very depressing 

 effect. Sulphuretted hydrogen, even in small quantities, is 

 fatal to the plant. Chloroform acts as a strong narcotic, 

 inducing a rapid abolition of excitability. The ludicrously 

 unsteady gait of the response of the plant under alcohol could 

 be effectively exploited in a temperance lecture. But the 



