Evening star., 1934-04-23
Mystery Substance in Cell
May Explain Neruous Action
Change IL, Phenomenon
ThrO,Us Ne,U Light
on Anaesthesia.
Theories of Evolution
Challenged by DR..
II. F. Osborn.

Discovery Of the fact that distilled
water acts as an anesthetic on plant
cells, announced before the National
Academy Of Sciences this morning,
promises to reopen the whole problem
Of the mechanism Of cellular irrita-
bility and, by possible implication, Of
nerve action and even consciousness.
The announcement was made by DR..
w. j. v. Osterhout of the Rockefeller
Institute. DR.. Osterhout works with
pond plant known as the stone
wort, or nitella, which has very large
cells. In this, as in other plants, cur
rents OF irritability can be set up
which move from one cell to the next.
1t Is very much the same phenomenon
In the plant as is nerve action IN
unspecialized form Of something OF
which nerve action Is a highly spe-
cialized form.
DR.. Osterhout has found, he an
nounced, that when a nitella cell Is
placed in distilled water 1t no longer
possesses this quality of irritability,
which is one of the fundamental dis
tinctions between the organic and the
inorganic in nature. Placed In pond
water again, it regains its irritability.
Application to Humans.
The discovery is chiefly significant
in its implications. This is exactly
what happens in the human or animal
body when the nerve cells are sub
jected to the action of an anaesthetic,
such as ether or chloroform. Pre-
sumably, these act on the nerve cell
in much the same manner as the dis
titled water acts on the plant cell, and
In the latter case progress can be
made in getting at the cause Of the
action.
What happens normally when
living nitella cell Is stimulated Is that
potassium is driven from the interior
of the cell to the outside, causing q
change in the electric potential, thus
setting up a current which flows along
the cell and sets up the same sort Of
phenomenon In the adjoining cell. Ex-
periments have indicated that about
the same thing happens in nerve cells.
DR.. Osterhout found that a fraction
Of per cent of calcium added to his
distilled water completely overcame
the inhibition of cellular irritability.
His deduction is that the distilled
water washed out of the cell some
unknown chemical subStance-prob-
ably contained in all cells and be-
Heved to be some organic compound
Of phosphorous-whic is necessary
to move the potassium at the time Of
stimulation In order to produce the
change in electric potential respon-
sible for the passage of the stimula-
ton.
Significant Substance.
Calcium inhibits its being washed
out-for much the same reason that
sea water inhibits the action of soap.
DR.. Osterhout has been unable to OBJ
tain any of the still hypothetical cell
sensitizer, which, if the deductions
are correct, would be one Of the most
significant chemical substances in
creation.
DR.. Osterhout himself was chary Of
carrying the deductions to some Of
their possible conclusions. He was
asked whether it might be possible
that this unknown substance con-
tained in brain cells-highly special
lied nerve cells-inight not be respon-
sible for brain action and conscious
ness itself. It Is impossible at present,
he said, to carry the implications be-
yond the phenomena of nerve action,
and then only so far as the analogy
holds between plant cells and nerve
cells.
The brain and nerve cells, however,
are known to contain considerable
of organ PHOSPHORUS COM
pounds. What happens in anesthesia,
DR.. Osterhout explained, is that nerve
currents are inhibited from passing
along the nervous pathways. 1t Is