104 



Scientific Proceedings (119). 



although the fundamental unity of swelling and osmosis is to be 

 recognized. In a second phase of growth, characteristic of plants 

 and well illustrated by yeasts and bacteria, syneretic cavities 

 appear in the plasmatic mass, and these known to the morpholo- 

 gist as vacuoles enlarge presumably by osmotic action, to such 

 extent that their volume may comprise three fourths of the space 

 of the cell. 



Substances of four main groups, carbohydrates, proteins, soaps 

 and lipoids which may be in the colloidal state of a reversible gel 

 are entangled or intermixed in the protoplasmic mass. The com- 

 ponents which tend to lower surface tension most would be carried 

 to the surface, and it is to such implied causes that we must 

 look in determining the character and derivation of the so-called 

 plasmatic membrane, the permeability of which is of the greatest 

 importance in the physical action of the cell, and of the wall which 

 encloses the whole. Much controversy has raged as to nature 

 and composition of this membrane. Its composition and character 

 must inevitably depend upon the character of the colloidal mass 

 which it bounds and from which it was formed. Morphologically 

 inseparable, it yields no molecular features under the ultra- 

 microscope, which would distinguish it from the mass. That it 

 is a polarizable protein layer, or pentosan anhydride or that it is 

 an albumen-lipoid mosaic are all theses which fall to the ground 

 when tested by the known laws of colloidal action, or by the 

 phenomena of cell-behavior. 



Furthermore the conclusions of Hansteen-Cranner 1 that the 

 ground substance of living matter is a colloidal meshwork of 

 lipoidal matter which runs through walls from cell to cell and 

 which takes the form of a highly irregular deposit between wall 

 and plasma, may be taken as a highly particularized interpretation 

 of facts he has uncovered as to the occurrence of these lipoids. 

 All jellies present will be entangled in the protoplasmic mass, 

 and what may be or what may not be protoplasm is a question 

 the answer to which lies not in the realm of morphology but of 

 energetics. It may well be that it is to the action of the lipoidal 

 substances and soaps that we may look hopefully for the solution 

 of some of the anomalies in permeability. 



1 Ber. d. Deut. bot. Gesell., 1919. xxxvii, 380. 



