Quite recently Calkins has carried out a somewhat similar series of
experiments, which have an important bearing on the interpretation of
Maupas’ results. The experiment of isolating an individual and tracing
the career of its descendants was repeated with the following results:
two series were started, the original forms coming from different
localities. Of their eight descendants four of each were isolated. The
remaining four of each set were kept together as stock material. The
rate of division was taken as the measure of vitality. The animals
divided more or less regularly from February to July. After each
division (or sometimes after two divisions) the individuals were
separated. About the 30th of July the paramœcia began to die “at an
alarming rate, indicating that a period of depression had apparently set
in, or degeneration in Maupas’ sense.” Up to this time the animals had
been living in hay infusion, renewed every few days, from which they
obtained the bacteria on which they feed. Calkins tried the effect of
putting the weakened paramœcia into a new environment. Infusion of
vegetables gave no good results, but meat infusions proved successful.
“The first experiment with the latter was with teased liver, which was
added to the usual hay infusion. The result was very gratifying, for the
organisms began immediately to grow and to divide, the rate of division
rising from five to nine divisions in successive ten-day periods.” This
beneficial effect was not lasting, however, and after ten days the
paramœcia began to die off faster than before, and the renewed
application of the liver extract failed to revive them. A number of
other extracts were then tried without effect. Finally they were
transferred to the clear extract of lean beef in tap water. The effect
of this medium was interesting, for, although it restored the weakened
vitality, there was no rapid increase in the rate of division, as when
first treated with the teased liver. The infusoria were, however, now
large and vigorous, and did not die unless transferred from the beef
medium to the usual hay infusion. “When this was attempted, they would
become abnormally active and would finally die. The division rate
gradually increased during the month of August until, in the last ten
days, they averaged six generations. Finally, in September, the attempts
to get them back on the old diet of hay infusion were successful, and
then the division rate went up at once to twelve times in ten days, and
a month later they were dividing at the rate of fifty times a month.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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