1071 
Strychnine tipon some Somatic Cells . 
He concluded that the effect of the strychnine was confined to causing the 
onset of an activity of division latent in the unfertilized egg-cell, and that 
the above abnormal figures were of too obscure an origin to throw light upon 
the process of normal division and were consequently not worth following 
out, particularly as they generally heralded degeneration of the cell. 
In 1900 Morgan ( 7 ) published the results of experiments with strychnine 
on the eggs of Arbacia. The emphasis of the paper, however, is chiefly 
upon the occurrence of cytoplasmic striation under the influence of the 
poison, and although the author quotes Hertwig at length, he contributes 
no fresh data concerning the abnormal nuclear figures described by the latter. 
In 1902 Wasiliefif (10) brought out a paper on the action of strychnine 
and certain other alkaloids upon the eggs of Strongylocentrotuslividus , but 
here again the writer is chiefly concerned with another point than that of 
the occurrence of abnormal divisions, namely, with the origin of the centro- 
some. He states, however, that spindles of peculiar shape arise after 
treatment with strychnine, and notes Hertwig’s observation of subsequent 
irregular divisions. 
Hertwig’s paper of 1896 was quoted again in 1903 by Delage ( 1 ) in 
an account of the behaviour of the eggs of As terms on exposure to carbon 
dioxide. Delage stated that the gas was capable of exciting to division 
approximately 100 % of eggs, provided the latter were in a state of incipient 
activity, i. e. about to form polar bodies, or having just done so. He noted 
that full development was never reached, but did not describe any abnormal 
divisions occurring during the retrogressive changes in the eggs. 
From the year 1899 until the present time, investigations have been 
carried by Loeb (6) far along the line indicated by Hertwig’s discovery of 
artificial parthenogenesis. Loeb treated the problem less from the point 
of view of abnormalities arising under particular conditions, than from the 
side of its wider interest, that depending on the nature of absorption in 
general; though he can perhaps hardly be said to have studied absorption 
per se so effectively as the results of absorption. He performed upon various 
kinds of egg extensive and detailed experiments with the salts of magnesium, 
potassium, sodium, and calcium, and also with some members of the fatty- 
acid series, and was successful in inducing development to an advanced 
stage. In 1906 he suggested that the direct effect of the sperm in normal 
development, and of the methods of artificial parthenogenesis, was the 
starting of a definite chemical process; and pointed out in support of this 
view that the process of segmentation is as entirely regular in partheno- 
genetic development as in that of fertilized eggs. 
The present note gives briefly the data obtained from some experiments 
with strychnine, undertaken with a view to examining the mitoses described 
by Hertwig in 1896. It has been necessary to leave the work unfinished, 
4 A % 
