Abstract
LONDON. Royal Society, April 24.—Sir Archibald Geikie, K.C.B., president, in the chair.—A. G. Huntsman: (1) Protostigmata in Ascidians. (2) The origin of the Ascidian mouth.—F. A. Balnbridge, S. H. Collins, and J. A. Menzies: Experiments on the kidneys of the frog. When the frog's kidneys are perfused through the aorta and the renal portal.veins with oxygenated normal or hypotonic Ringer's solution the urine formed is hypotonic to the perfusing fluid and is derived entirelv from the glomeruli, since the tubules secrete no urine under these conditions. When the tubules are poisoned with corrosive sublimate or (temporarily) with caffein the urine becomes isotonic with the perfusing fluid. On the contrary, if the glomeruli are killed by the arterial perfusion of boiled Ringer's solution, while the tubules still receive an adequate supply of oxygen through the renal portal veins, the urine formed continues to be more dilute than the perfusing fluid.—Cecil Revis: (1) The probable value to Bacillus coli of “slime”. formation in soils. When kept in sterilised soils, particularly if these contain excreta, B. coli shows a great tendency to the formation of “slime,”a property which is retained for some time when the organism is plated out on ordinary nutrient media. It has been found that soils so inoculated with B. coli, together with other soil organisms of a sporogenous type, are able to retain and absorb moisture from the air in a remarkable manner, so that during a period of three years flasks containing these soils and only closed with cotton-wool plugs retained and even increased the original water added to them, whilst controls which did not contain the colon organism rapidly dried up.—C. Revis: Variation in B. coli. The production of two permanent varietiesfrom one original strain by means of brilliant green.From the experiments it appears (1) that from onesingle cell there may arise new cells differing in thepower of resistance to the same environment andconsequently modified by it in a different manner; (2)that the exhibition of physiological activity is not anintrinsic and integral part of the protoplasm, but thatsuch powers may be entirely lost without loss ofvitality in the organism itself.
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Societies and Academies . Nature 91, 233–235 (1913). https://doi.org/10.1038/091233a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/091233a0