ON ARTIFICIAL CELLS 119 



Now there is another type of cell which is nothing 

 more than a bubble, and yet it would seem should 

 appear different from ordinary air bubbles, and that 

 is what Sir William Eamsay has suggested should be 

 one of the effects produced by the action of radium 

 emanation upon gelatinous media. He was inclined 

 to think that radiobes were really of this description. 

 But, as we have shown, their properties would not be 

 the same, and although it seems possible, and even 

 highly probable, that such bodies should be produced 

 by the action of radium on bouillon, their behaviour, 

 as we hope to show, would be quite different from those 

 other products that have already been observed. 



Thus, when radium emanation acts on albuminous 

 bodies, the layer acted upon is coagulated, and 

 if a particle of radium salt is embedded in a 

 gelatinous medium this emanation given off will thus 

 form a cell-wall round it, the contents being ulti- 

 mately converted into helium. Strictly speaking, 

 the emanation electrolyses the water in the gelatin, 

 and the nascent oxygen and hydrogen coagulate the 

 albuminoids : probably by the action of the positive 

 ions in the freshly electrolysed gas. The water 

 diffuses through the boundary membrane or cell-wall, 

 and the gases formed within the cell will go on increas- 

 ing : thus the cell will expand or apparently grow. 

 Now, as the tension in some parts of the cell-wall 

 will most probably be less than at others, the gas 

 in the course of time will force its way through the 

 wall; and thus, apparently, the cell will bud and 



