The Organism as a Whole, from a Physicochemical ViewpointLoeb, Jacques
Science
The Organism as a Whole, from a Physicochemical Viewpoint
Loeb, Jacques
Biology; Life (Biology); Mendel's law
[151] Smith, Geoffrey, _Proc. Roy. Soc._, B. 1915, lxxxviii., 418.
All these cases agree in this, that apparently specific substances
induce or favour growth, not in the whole body, but in special parts of
the body. Sachs suggested that there must be in each organism as many
specific organ-forming substances as there are organs in the body.
We will now show that the assumption of the existence of such
“organ-forming” substances (which may or may not be specific) and of
their flow in definite channels explains the inhibitory influence of
the whole on the parts as well as the unbridled regeneration of the
isolated parts.
2. We have seen that the resting egg can be aroused to development and
growth by substances contained in a spermatozoön or by certain other
substances mentioned in the preceding chapter. We will assume that
plants contain a large number of cells or buds which are comparable to
the resting egg cell, but which can be aroused to action by certain
substances circulating in the sap; and that the same is effected for
animal cells by substances in the blood. In plants the cells which can
be aroused to new growth have very often a rather definite location
while in lower animals they are more ubiquitous. For experimental
purposes organisms where these buds have a definite location are more
favourable, since we are better able to study the mechanism underlying
the process of activation and inhibition (correlation). When a leaf
of the plant _Bryophyllum calycinum_ is cut off and put on moist
sand or into water or even into air saturated with water vapour, new
plants will arise from notches of the leaf. This is the usual way of
propagating the plant and in no other part of the leaf except the
notches will new plants arise. These notches therefore contain cells
comparable to seeds or to unfertilized eggs or to the mesenchyme
cells which give rise to legs in the tadpole of the frog. The question
arises: Why do notches in the leaf never begin to grow while the
leaf is attached to an intact plant, and why do they grow when the
leaf is isolated? To this we are inclined to give an answer in the
sense of Bonnet, Sachs, de Vries, and Goebel, namely that the flow of
(specific?) substances in the plant determines when and where dormant
buds or anlagen shall begin to grow. Such substances may originate
or may be present in the leaf; but as long as it is connected with a
normal plant they will be carried by the circulation to the growing
points of the stem and of the roots and they cannot reach the notches;
while when we detach the leaf, either a new distribution or a new flow
of liquids will be established whereby the substances reach some of the
notches; and in these notches new roots and a new shoot will be formed.
When we cut off a leaf and put it into moist air, not all but only a
few of the notches will, as a rule, grow out (Fig. 16); but when we
isolate each notch leaving as much of the rest of the leaf as possible
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