Life Movements in Plants, Volume IBose, Jagadis Chandra
Science
Life Movements in Plants, Volume I
Bose, Jagadis Chandra
Growth (Plants); Plants -- Irritability and movements
_Directive action of current on conduction of excitation in a
nerve-and-muscle preparation: Experiment 40._--A preparation was made
with a length of the spine and two nerves leading to the muscles. The
specimen is supported in a suitable manner, and electric connections
made with the toes, one for the entrance and the other for exit of
the constant current. The current thus entered, say, by the left
toe ascended the muscle and went up the nerve on the left side, and
descended through the other nerve on the right side along the muscle
and thence to the right toe. Before the passage of the constant
electric current the spinal nerve was stimulated by an induction
shock of definite intensity. The nervous impulse was conducted by the
two nerves, one to the left and the other to the right, and caused
a feeble twitch of the respective muscles. A feeble current of 1.5
micro-ampère was sent along the nerve-and-muscle circuit, ascending
by the left and descending by the right side. It will be seen that
excitation initiated at the spine is propagated ‘against’ the electric
current on the left side, and ‘with’ the current on the right side.
On repetition of previous electric stimulus the effect of directive
action of current was at once manifested by the left limb being
thrown into a state of strong tetanic contraction, whereas the right
limb remained quiescent. By changing the direction of the constant
current the induced enhancement of conductivity of the nerve was
quickly transferred from the left to the right side, the depression
or arrest of conduction being simultaneously transferred to the left
side. Turning the reversing key one way or the other brought about
_supra_ or _non_-conducting state of the nerve, and this condition was
maintained throughout the duration of the current.
I shall next describe a more perfect method for obtaining quantitative
results both with plant and animal. In order to demonstrate the
universality of the phenomenon, I next used _Mimosa pudica_ instead of
_Averrhoa_, for experiments on plants.
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