22 MEMORIAS DE LA SOCIEDAD CIENTIFICA 


The action of alcohol on my artificial product is curious, there being 
a remarkable excitation of the movements followed by their absolute 
paralysis. 
In the sea—urchin egg, says Dubois, segmentation can be prevented 
by hindering hydration by the addition of salt at 2 per cent. to the sea 
water. When segmentation has already begun ¡it stops in'a strongly 
salted medium, but it pursues ¡ts course directly after some normal ' 
water is poured on it; and, what appears more notable, it then conti- 
nues with increased rapidity. I have observed .. phenomena 
in my artificial protoplasm. 
In a word, the protoplasmic currents have a constructive or forma- 
íive action comparable to that wrought by rivers on the earth's surface. 
Contractile vacuoles can be explained by an augmentation of tension 
promoted by some endosmotic currents. The former may be imitated 
by alternatively stretching and relaxing a plate of gluten. 
Life ought not to be likened to a continuous chemical reaction, the 
mechanism of which remains involved in darkness and unexplained. 
Life is now to be defined as the result of the physico-chemical action 
«of protoplasmic currents, the cause of such currents being diffusion, 
heat, and some other secondary factors. Death consists in an absolute 
suspension of the internal currents in general; Jatent life is character- 
ised by the establishment of the said currents under the influence of 
oxygen, heat, and water, in a germ or organism having the structure 
and chemical elements necessary, and supplied with every nutriment 
required. Oscillating life is nothing more than an alternate contribution 
and reassertion of the constructive internal currents (sleep), depending 
upon the variations of the external temperature. Every physico-chem- 
ical or mechanical action capable of affecting the rapidity, direction, 
and other characters of Internal currents must have more or less in- 
fluence on the phenomena hitherto considered as vital. 
There is a new series of proofs: the experiments of the writer on 
the movements and evolution of alcalines oleates in the Pfeffer's solu- 
tion. (See “Memorias de la Sociedad Alzate,” 1900). 
