116 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



when the anassthetic is withdrawn. Exactly the same series of phenomena 

 is exhibited by plants under favourable circumstances. On this point, in a 

 lecture delivered before the British Association, in August, 1879, Professor 

 Allman, at that time President, says: — " We owe to Claude Bernard a series 

 of interesting and most instructive experiments en the action of ether and 

 chloroform on plants. He exposed to the vapour of ether a healthy and 

 vigourous sensitive plant by confining it under a bell-glass, into which he 

 introduced a sponge filled with ether. At the end of half an hour the plant 

 was in a state of anaesthesia ; all its leaflets remained fully extended, but 

 they showed no tendency to shrink when touched. It was then withdrawn 

 from the influence of the ether, when it gradually recovered its irritability, 

 and finally responded, as before, to the touch." It is not, however, the 

 motor power of plants alone that is arrested by anaesthetics. " Claude 

 Bernard has shown that germination is suspended by the action of ether 

 or chloroform. Seeds of cress, a plant whose germination is very rapid, 

 were placed in conditions favourable to a speedy germination, and while 

 thus placed were exposed to the vapour of ether. The germination, which 

 would otherwise have shown itself by the next day, was arrested. For five 

 or six days the seeds were kept under the influence of the ether, and showed 

 during this time no disposition to germinate. They were not killed, how- 

 ever, they only slept, for on the substitution of common air for the etherized 

 air with which they had been surrounded, germination at once set in and 

 proceeded with activity. * * * Experiments were also made on that 

 function of plants by which they absorb carbonic acid and exhale oxygen. 

 * * * Aquatic plants afford the most convenient subjects for such 

 experiments. If one of these be placed in ajar of water holding ether or 

 chloroform in solution, and a bell-glass be placed over the submerged plant, 

 we shall find that the plant no longer absorbs carbonic acid, or emits 

 oxygen. It remains, however, quite green and healthy. In order to 

 awaken the plant it is only necessary to place it in non-etherized water, 

 when it will begin once more to absorb carbonic acid and exhale oxygen 

 under the influence of sunlight." 



But although it appears that the protoplasm of animals and vegetables 

 is, in its chemical composition, microscopic characters, and physiological 

 manifestations, identical ; yet that there are variations, probably due to 

 difference of molecular arrangement, is equally manifest, — for we know that 

 every plant and animal in the Universe produces protoplasm, which can 

 only reproduce its own kind. We know that a man or an elephant could 

 never be developed from the protoplasm of a plant ; nor could the egg of 

 a fowl or a fish ever produce anything but another fowl or another fish. 

 But we may go further, and show that the difference does not end here. 



