This has been shown to be a general law. The effect may also be observed with radiation, heat, and cold, and indeed with any agent capable of exerting an effect on cells. Bactericidal agents exhibit hormesis in yeast.
Antibiotics frequently cause a zone of accelerated growth in bacteriological assay work.
The release of an enzyme, proenzyme, hormone, or ribonucleic acid information molecule could quickly change the internal character of cells. The minimum response is an apparent overcompensation at the sensing threshold of the organism. The complexities of higher organisms lead to interactions between different cells and tissues. This allows a more complex reaction mechanism to be visualized. The fact that so many apparently unrelated stimuli produce the same general response suggests that there are a few fundamental processes by which the cell responds to all such stimuli rather than myriad processes by which it responds to a wide variety of compounds.