SCIENCE — 
Fripay, Juty 19, 1918 
CONTENTS 
Transmission of Activation in Passive Metals 
as a Model of the Protoplasmic or Nervous 
Type of Transmission: PRoFEssoR RAuPH S. 
LILLIE ....... shat tyaesyee hase betrers beets & 51 
The Inter-allied Scientific Food Commission... 60 
Scientific Events :— 
The Asphalt Industry in 1917; Training 
Camps for Instructors to prepare College 
Men for Military Service; Guarding Sol- 
diers’ Camps against Flies and Mosquitoes ; 
The Weather Bureau and Dr. Cleveland 
Abbe = Grove Carl, Gilbert S30. ccs... ose 62 
Scientific Notes and News ...........0.000% 65 
University and Educational News .......... 67 
Discussion and Correspondence :— 
A Musical Cricket-like Chirping of a Grass- 
Rappers +e Ao PREARD oid ose chs Sheree oe te beh 67 
Scientific Books :— 
Lutz’s Field Book of Insects: PRoressor 
ALEX. D..MACGILMIVRAY Jo. occ ces lence 68 
Notes on Meteorology and Climatology :— 
Rainfall in the United States: Dr. CHARLES 
PP BROORS Ss iis0 Sksemtacss sadivks lanes 69 
Special Articles :— 
A Parallel Mutation in Drosophila Funebris: 
Le ORS 7. ee 72 
The Kentucky Academy of Science: ALFRED 
RP UER aetoh ta'siels crs cles sis ses cec css ce 73 
MSS. intended for publication and books, etc.,intended for 
review should be sent to The Editor of Science, Garrison-on- 
Hudson, N. Y. 
TRANSMISSION OF ACTIVATION IN 
PASSIVE METALS AS A MODEL OF 
THE PROTOPLASMIC OR NERV- 
OUS TYPE OF TRANSMISSION 
One of the most remarkable peculiarities of 
irritable living cells and cellular elements like 
nerve fibers is the readiness with which chem- 
ical or metabolic influence may be transmitted, 
without accompanying transfer of material, 
between regions differing in the degree or 
character of their physiological activity. Thus 
one region of a muscle or nerve which is in a 
physiologically more active or “stimulated” 
state transmits its activity regularly to another 
more or less distant resting region. The state 
of activity aroused in the irritable living sys- 
tem by a localized stimulus does not itself re- 
main localized, but tends to spread; the region 
immediately stimulated imparts a similar state 
of activity to adjoining regions, these then 
activate the next adjoining, and in this 
manner a wave of activation or excitation is 
propagated over the entire irritable element, 
often to a long distance from its point of 
origin. In many cases, as in nerve, there 
is no decrease in the intensity of the local 
process as it passes along the element; its 
characteristics are reduplicated both quali- 
tatively and quantitatively at each point 
which it reaches in its course; the local ex- 
citation is temporary and quickly dies out, 
each successive region of the tissue becoming 
active and then returning automatically to its 
original state of rest. Transmission of this 
type is known to physiologists as “ conduc- 
tion,” and is exhibited in its most highly de- 
veloped form in the nerves of higher animals. 
It is, however, by no means peculiar to these 
structures; any cell or cell element which re- 
acts as a whole to a local stimulus illustrates 
the same phenomenon; some disturbance affect- 
ing the metabolism and functional activity of 
the living system is radiated from the original 
