“ANTONIO ALZATE.” 21 

currents stops life every where, descomposition coinciding with an: 
absolute diminution of movement. 
The rapidity of the course of blood through the capillaries is ident- 
ical with that of the currents of protoplasm, and varies likewise ac- 
cording to conditions, its result being the same—nutrition and life. 
A motionless peripheral layer of serum is observed similar to that 
apparent in the currents of pseudopodia. 
The difference between latent and oscillating life lies, in short, in 
the almost absolute or simply partial inhibition of the internal currents. 
Wather, heat, 'and oxygen are required as in a physico-chemical phe- 
nomenon, and Í have often suspended the currents in my protoplasm 
by means of desiccation or refrigeration for months together. There is 
then another argument against my theory which regarded movements 
as a result of the discharges of carbon dioxide—a theory which has 
certainly been for me a source of fertile suggestion, though I have 
now given it up. * | 
The importance of a large quantity of water in internal currents is 
perfectly demonstrated. 1 have shown that dilution has a great influence 
on the rapidity of the granulations in my artificial protoplasm. 
Now, the gray substance contains more water than the substance 
in the cerebellum, and this has more than the white substance of the 
brain and medulla (R. Dubois). The neuroplasm has doubtless its 
currents, and the variations exhibited in their rapidity, as well as the 
shocks of their molecules and the waves produced, perchance, by the 
passage of the current from a conductor with a big calibre to a thinner 
one, may result in certain nervous and continuous actions or sensa- 
tions, external stimuli provoking the vibrations, as 1 have studied in 
mercury.' On the other hand, Dubois says that anaesthetics produce 
the expulsion of internal water, and 1 have observed that exhalations 
of ether have the property of energetically repelling any thin layers of 
water (“On a Property of Ether,” Memorias y Revista Sociedad Alzate, 
1895-96, Nos. 5, 6, p. 33). This means that anaesthetics modify the 
rapidity of the currents or even succeed in completely preventing them. 
1 Vatural Science, December 1898, . 
Memorias. T. XIII, 1899,—2 
