Abstract
THAT the biological aspects of the conception of time form a real problem cannot be doubted. Even the expression ‘biological time’ may have a meaning, if judiciously defined. The present book is built around three experimental facts closely connected with the flow of time: (1) the very regular falling off in the rate of healing (the cicatrization index) of wounds according to the age of the organism; (2) the regular fall in the growth-promoting power of serum for explanted cells with the age of the donor; and (3) the dependence of the subjective estimation of time on experimentally alterable factors, especially temperature. The book, however, has many disadvantages. At least one third of it is not at all germane to the principal issue, and in many places we miss citations of the relevant literature, even where it is French, the language in which this book was first published. It is concluded, inter alia, that there is a physiological time which does not flow uniformly like physical time, and that time has a discontinuous or atomic nature. The book is unfortunately marred by numerous errors of translation which in some cases may lead to confusion.
Biological Time
Lecomte
du Noüy
By. Pp. x + 180. (London: Methuen and Co., Ltd., 1936.) 7s. 6d. net.
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Biological Time. Nature 139, 94 (1937). https://doi.org/10.1038/139094c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/139094c0