The origin of osmotic effects. III.-The function of hormones is stimulating enzymic change in relation to narcosis and the phenomena of degenerative and regenerative change in living structures

Abstract

It is well known that a variety of substances will stimulate plant growth if used in more or less minute proportions, although when used in excess they are active anæsthetics; the acceleration of the flowering process in plants by means of ether vapour is a familiar case in point; animal as well as vegetable tissues are influenced by such substances. So far as we are aware, no analysis of either process-either of that of accelerated change or of that of retarded change-hitherto attempted has been attended with results that are in any way satisfactory; the tendency has been to correlate all such manifestations vaguely with protoplasmic activity and to attach to them a vital significance. The question we would raise is whether, in the case of animals and plants, protoplasm may not serve as an infinitely delicate indicator of change, whether the effects observed be not often the outcome of changes initially simple in themselves, that commonly escape detection because no proper opportunity is given of observing them. Our attention has been specially drawn to this subject by two striking communications made to the French Academy of Sciences on July 12, 1909, the one by Guignard, the other by Mirande, on the effect of chlorofrom and other anæsthetics in stimulating enzymic activity in leaves; in particular we were impressed by the wonderful delicacy and elegance of the method developed by Guignard of demonstrating the liberation of hydrogen cyanide in the case of leaves containing cyanophoric glucosides by means of paper coloured orange-yellow with an alkaline solution of sodium picrate-if subjected to the action of hydrogen cyanide, such paper is at first coloured a brown-orange, then rose-red and finally a dark brick-red. The test is one of surprising delicacy.