MYSTERIES OF LIFE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20075, 16 April 1927, Page 4

MYSTERIES OF LIFE.

AUTOMATIC MOVEMENTS. “HEART-BEATS” OF A PLANT; “Man is nota passive agent, but has latent power to rise above inimical surroundings.” This is the conclusion of Sir Jngadis Chandra Bose, the famous Indian scientist and founder of the Bose Research Institute at Calcutta, whose recent lectures in London caused considerable discussion. In his presidential address to the Indian Science Congress at Lahore Sir Jagadis set forth the results of his 30 years’ investigations of plant life. These show that the physiological mechanism of the plant is identical with that of the animal, with specific contractile and rhythmic nervous tissues. Mysteries of life connected with automatic movements are claimed to have been solved by experiments with the weed biophytum sonsitivum. which proved that internal stimuli are really external stimuli which have become trapped. One conclusion is that, in the determination of sensation, the internal stimulus of the will plays as important a part as outeidc shock. During a lecture to the Royal Society of Medicine in London, Sir Jagadis was able to show bis audience the neart-bcat of a plant magnified 1.000,000 times, flickering as a faint luminous line across a blackboard. Because the plant’s root had been cut its “heart” drooped at first, until Professor Bose applied a stiraulent in the form of a solution of camphor. Thereupon the light immediately steadied and revived. Hindu medicine, he said, had known for 1000 years a preparation of cobra venom, mixed with certain salts, which would often save life when a patient Jay at his last gasp. Hs had tried the remedy upon dying plants with the same result-