ON THE CONDITIONS OF HEALTH IN SCHOOLS. iGS 



After consideration of the important conclusions arrived at in this 

 report the Committee urge the British Association to move for the 

 appointment of a Royal Commission or departmental committee with 

 the necessary authority fully to investigate the subject. 



The Committee desire to be reappointed, and ask for a grant of lOI. 

 for the purpose of obtaining instruments for investigation in hearing 

 tests for school use. 



The Mectrical Phenomena and Metabolism of Arum spadices. — Report 

 of the Committee, consisting of Professor A. D. Waller {Chair- 

 man), Miss Sanders {Secretary), Professor Gotch, and Professor 

 Farmer. 



Eepori of Dr. A. D. Waller, F.R.S., on the work o/Miss Sanders and 

 Miss Kemp during the year 1907-08. 



The work during the past year upon Arii^m sjmdices by Miss Sanders 

 and Miss Kemp, although it has not been very fruitfuf aa regards the 

 original object of the inquiry, has given rise to observations and experi- 

 ments which are in my opinion of very considerable value, and promise 

 to lead to further results of positive importance in vegetable and in 

 animal physiology. 



The actual results as regards the Arum spadices are described in the 

 report of Miss Sanders ; that of Miss Kemp deals with the general 

 question of the transmission of stimuli in vegetable tissues, which was 

 the first outcome of the original inquiry. This question has been 

 touched upon by many previous observers by more or less definite 

 methods and with more or less definite conclusions. I have myself 

 for many years had this problem before my mind, and I am glad to take 

 this opportunity of stating my attitude towards it {vide infra). 



The observations of Miss Kemp have, however, not been limited to 

 this single problem. In consequence of the manner in which it has been 

 treated in the recent publications of Professor J. C. Bose, Miss Kemp 

 was led to examine some of the data upon which that author has rested 

 his claim to have discovered the existence of vegetable nerves. As 

 presented by him these data consist essentially in the statement that a 

 close parallelism exists between the contractions of fibro-vascular bundles 

 in vegetables and those of ordinary nerves in animals. The results 

 of Miss Kemp's experiments with me are given in a joint paper to the 

 Phy.siological Society,i entitled 'A Demonstration of the "Contractility " 

 of Nerve, of Fiddle-strings, and of other Strings,' to indicate the illusory 

 nature of Professor Bose's results, which, according to our experiments, 

 are entirely due to the heating effects of the high-tension induction 

 currents used for stimulation. 



The consideration of the effects of heat naturally led to a consideration 

 of tlie question whether or no heat j^er se may properly be regarded as 

 a physiological stimulus of vegetal)Ie or animal protoplasm. Obviously 

 temperature is a condition of stimulation, but the question to which we 



i rrwrrdiiiqn Phyxiol. Soc. Journal o/ P/,i/yi( lo/r^ IOCS, vol. xsxvii, 



