The electrical polarity of Obelia and frog's skin and its reversible inhibition by cyanide, ether, and chloroform

✍ Scribed by Lund, E. J.

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1926
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 630 KB
• Volume: 44
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-104X
• DOI: 10.1002/jez.1400440114

✦ Synopsis

FIVE FIGURES

Electrical polarity of cells and cell aggregates has not until recently been recognized as an important condition associated with the usual structural evidence for the existence of organic polarity. The significance of this electrical polarity lies in the fact that it seems for the first time to make possible studies upon the polar character of growth and differentiation in terms of an energy change which may be measured. This and other facts lead to the conclusion that organic polarity should no longer be thought of only in the older sense of a static structural polarity and symmetry, but rather in the sense of a process associated with energy change.

The differences of electric potential which occur along the isolated stem of an actively growing hydroid colony of Obelia are typically less than 1.5 millivolt. F o r the measurement of such small potentials the only type of electrode which has been found sufficiently stable is the lead electrode. I n this paper some of the peculiar characteristics of the electric potentials which occur in Obelia will be described.

PROCEDURE

Main stems of Obelia longissima colonies varying between 70 and 100 mm. in length were isolated by cutting away the branches. In every experiment the most apical internode 383