560 



THE WONDER OF LIFE 



growth. Only in the case of reproductive organs does a 

 remnant grow to replace what has been removed. 



Lessona's Law. These two sets of facts the rarity of 

 regeneration in the internal organs of higher animals, and 



the strangely unequal distribu- 

 tion of the capacity point to 

 a conclusion which seems to 

 have occurred to several natu- 

 ralists from Reaumur to 

 Weismann, and was clearly 

 summed up in 1868 by the 

 Italian naturalist Lessona. 

 According to ' Lessona's law ', 

 regeneration tends to be well 

 marked in those animals, and 

 in those parts of animals which 

 are in the course of their 

 natural life particularly liable 

 to injury. To which, two 

 saving clauses must be added, 

 that the lost part be of some 

 of starfish v ^ a ^ i m P or tance, and that the 

 (Linckia). (After Richters. ) wound or injury 'be not in 



An arm and a portion of . ,. ,., , , . , m , . 



disc regenerating the other itself likely to be fatal. This 



four arms. M, the mouth ; theory, which is really Dar- 



RA, a regenerating arm ; OA, J 



the original arm ; AG, the winian, has been re-stated 



by Weismann in the words : 

 ' the power of regeneration 



possessed by an animal or by a part of an animal is regu- 

 lated by adaptation to the frequency of loss, and to the 

 extent of the damage caused by the loss '. 



It is evident, at once, that the lank and slender bodies 



