5 i o General Notes. [June, 



which these 

 nscid liquids 



yield no such results ; the form of pseudo-organic product is 

 constant with the same salts ; and with some exceptions, the 

 forms are only obtained from substances which are found in real 

 organisms. Sulphates and phosphates produce tubes, carbonates 

 give rise to cellules. Membraneous cell-wall, giving passage only 

 to liquids; and heterogenous granular contents combine to ren- 

 der the resemblance to forms organically produced, most striking. 

 M. Fournier obtained similar results as early as 1878. 



Messrs. O. Loew and T. Bokorny, of Munich, have worked the 

 idea advanced by Professor Pfluger, that there is a chemical dis- 

 tinction between living and dead protoplasm, up to a tangible 

 hypothesis. Herr Loew found that albumen contained a number 

 of aldehyde-groups closely bordering on amide-groups. Such 

 groups, according to modern chemistry, must have intense atomic 

 motion, and Herr Loew argued that this motion constitutes life. 

 It was found that living protoplasm had the power of reducing 

 silver from a very dilute alkaline solution, whilst dead protoplasm 

 lacked this power. Their theory is that the aldehyde-groups of 

 each molecule are brought into immediate proximity with the 

 amide-groups of the next, thus causing intensification of molecu- 

 lar action ; with increased complexity and mobility follows in- 

 creased instability, and thus apparently trifling agencies displace 

 the molecules, cause their action to cease, and liberate heat, pro- 

 ducing fevers, etc. When lifeless albumen is converted into the 

 protoplasm of a living cell, heat becomes latent. Vital force, in 

 the opinion of these chemists, is due to the tension of the alde- 

 hyde-groups ultimately due to electric differences, and life is the 

 total result yielded. 



The reviewer in the Journal of Science points out that Loew and 

 Bokorny appear to regard albumen and protoplasm as identical, 

 whereas, according to the analyses of Reinke, protoplasm con- 

 tains scarcely thirty per cent, of albuminous matter, and includes 

 upwards of forty proximate principles. The third contribution to 

 the subject is that of O. Butschli, who in Zoolo^hchcr Auzcv-fr 

 publishes some original thoughts of life and death. He first 

 draws attention to the great difference between the nature of 

 death in the Protozoa and Metazoa. In the former the parent 

 never exists by the side of its offspring, its reproduction (by fu- 

 sion or spore-formation is the death of the individual. The higher 

 animals, on the other hand, live after the birth of their offspring. 

 but for a certain limited time, and their death throws a quantity 

 of organic matter into inactivity. He then finds the hypothetical 

 cause of the limited duration of individual life in the nature of the 

 egg, which he supposes to endow the individual with a limited 

 quantity of a " in a certain sense ferment-like working substence 

 (in gczuissem Siunc fcrmentartig ivirkcndcn Stoffes). This linnte 



