138 STUDIES IN ELECTRO-PHYSIOLOGY: 



CHAPTER X 

 AMCEBOID MOVEMENT 



" THE protoplasm tends during life to exhibit move- 

 ments which are apparently spontaneous, and when the 

 cell is uninclosed by a membrane a change in the shape, or 

 even in the position of the cell, may be thereby produced." 

 (Schafer.) 



One of the constituents of cell-protoplasm is called 

 nucleo-protein, and the normal supply of iron to the body is 

 contained in the nucleo-proteins of plant and animal cells. 



A cell possesses the power of breathing, i.e., taking in 

 oxygen. 



" There is no doubt that protoplasmic movement is 

 essentially the same thing in both animal and vegetable 

 cells. But in vegetable cells the cell-wall obliges the 

 movement to occur in the interior." (Halliburton, 1915.) 



What is the nature of that movement ? I learn from 

 the same source that if a living amoeba is watched for a 

 minute or two, an irregular projection is seen to be gradu- 

 ally thrust out from the main body and retracted, a second 

 mass is then protruded in another direction, and gradually 

 the whole protoplasmic substance is, as it were, drawn into 

 it. The amoeba thus comes to occupy a new position, 

 and when this is repeated several times we have locomotion 

 in a definite direction, together with a continual change of 

 form. (Halliburton, 1915.) 



Is it not possible to explain this movement by the 

 electrical law of attraction and repulsion ? Iron, as I have 



