Influence of Colchicine on the Sexually Induced Colour Change of Rhodeus amarus

Abstract

IN previous communications, I have given an account of some experimental evidence pointing to the intervention of hormonal influences in the action of colchicine in plants^1,2,3. I have also suggested² that a similar mechanism of action may be, among others, responsible for the mitotic impetus described by A. P. Dustin and his school⁴ in the germinative zones of animals treated with this alkaloid. This view seemed to be further supported by the extraordinary number of mitoses observed by Allen, Smith and Gardner⁵, Bastenie and Zylberzsac⁶, and many others, in the sexual organs of animals treated with sex hormones combined with colchicine. It seemed therefore worth investigating whether colchicine, hitherto regarded merely as a revealer of these hormonally inducad mitotic processes, can also exercise, either independently or synergetically with endocrine products, a hormonal action in animals.