VOLUME LxXIi NUMBER 2 
TELE 
HOTANICAE: GGAZETTE 
| AUGUST 1916 
AXIAL SUSCEPTIBILITY GRADIENTS IN ALGAE 
C. M. Cuirp 
Introduction 
Before presenting the data which constitute the subject of this 
paper, it is necessary to make clear the reasons which determined 
this venture into the botanical field and the presentation of these 
data to botanists for consideration and criticism. My experimental 
studies on the lower animals, extending over a period of years, 
have led me to certain conclusions concerning the nature of the 
physiological axes of organisms and of physiological individuality, 
which suggest that the physiological individual as an expression 
of a dynamic unity and order in protoplasm is fundamentally 
similar in its origin and nature in both animals and plants. The 
observations recorded in this paper constitute the first step in an 
attempt to determine whether and to what extent this is true. — 
In order to make clear the point of view from which the investiga- 
tion was undertaken, a brief statement of certain results of my 
experiments with animals and of the general conception toward 
which they point is essential. 
T have shown that various lines of evidence point to the existence 
of a gradient in the rate of metabolism or of certain fundamental 
metabolic reactions as a characteristic feature of at least the chief 
physiological axes, and probably of all such axes in animals. 
Such a gradient is the earliest demonstrable indication of the axis, 
and in many forms persists without essential change throughout 
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