Diphasic Liquid Systems and Bio-electrical 
Phenomena.—A Reply to Criticism. 
BY 
R. BEUTNER. 
I T is generally recognized that an attempt should be made to apply 
physical and chemical laws to all biological phenomena. It has been 
a strange feature of the special field of electro-physiology that an application 
of this kind has been almost wanting. A number of peculiar theories were 
extensively discussed, viz. the‘pre-existence theory’ (E. du Bois-Reymond), 
the ‘ alteration-theory ’ (R. Herrmann), the ‘ theory of ionic selective permea¬ 
bility ’ (W. Ostwald, Bernstein, and others), the { lipoid theory * (M. Cremer), 
&c. Little was contributed from physical and chemical experimental 
work, so that a gap really existed between electro-chemistry on the one side 
and electro-physiology on the other. 
This was partly due to the failure of older physiologists (du Bois- 
Reymond, Herrmann) to furnish precise quantitative measurements relating 
to biological electric currents. It is principally to the merit of an English 
physiologist , J. S. Macdonald , to have given , for the first time , such quanti¬ 
tative data. Based on an extensive series of measurements of the current 
in a frog’s nerve, he found that a regular relation existed between the 
electric current of the nerve and its salt content. One of his chief conclusions 
may be fully quoted : ‘ There is no sign of any critical point marking the 
separation of two possible phenomena , one a function of the condition of life , 
and the other a physical phenomenon dominated by the salt-content of the 
nerve and capable of continuation after its death ’ (Proc. Roy. Soc., lxvii. 310). 
This most important work was one of the starting-points for the present 
author’s investigation of the physico-chemical nature of biological currents. 
In the laboratory of the well-known American biologist, J. Loeb, extensive 
electric measurements on plants were made by him which revealed the 
same phenomena in a more precise manner ; later the author succeeded in 
imitating closely these electrical phenomena by means of synthetic organic 
substances. 1 
1 A description of all results obtained is found in the book of the author on Entstehung elektrischer 
Strome in Geweben und ihre kiinstliche Nachahmung, Stuttgart, 1920. 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. XXXVII. No. CXLVIII. October, 1923 ] 
Y y 3 
