A Bipolar Theory of Living Processes

If it were possible that the embryo of man were to have taken from it every element except the energy elements of the fish, would a fish then be born? It is more probable that the fish and other phylogenetic elements show man to earry still vestiges which in time will be eliminated, but which are not necessary to the development of man. For would one suppose that if the elements in the ovum of man characteristic of the fish were removed that the ovum then could not develop man ?

That the energy units in the sex cells are exceptionally labile 13 indicated by the fact that they show a greater susceptibility to radiation than do somatic cells. The looser the bonds in energy systems the more readily is their equilibrium disturbed and in consequence the greater is their power of energy transformation and hence of function and growth. If one unit of energy of an embryo outgrows another it indicates that the former is a system of looser bonds; that is, a system which is more easily influenced—has more power of growth. Thus we may suppose that the energy units of the ancestral forms become progressively more stable and hence less able to compete with the later more mobile units. This relative passivity of the ancient units limits their power of growth. We may suppose

that this same principle would apply to the inheritance of more recently acquired characteristics. Thus the characteristics of а child would depend upon the relative labilities of specific energy units transmitted to it from its immediate and more remote ancestors. This would explain the occasional ‘“throwbacks” to remote ancestral appearances. Thus when two specific energy units, one from the mother, one from the father—compete in forming a given feature of the child and that of the mother gains ascendency and so creates the feature, it does not necessarily mean that the paternal unit is destroyed; it may remain inactive, potential, to reappear in another generation.

*[t is known that when the antennae of a snail, the chelae of a crab, the feet of a salamander or the head of a worm are amputated, these organs are reproduced even when the amputation is performed during adult life. “Spallanzani has cut the feet and tail off the same salamander six successlve times, and Bonnett seven times, and each time feet were reproduced of exactly the same size as the former ones without any increase or decrease in any part. These facts show that the formative agent, whatever it may be, is always external to the part formed, and that it exercises upon the whole development of that part and throughout its entire duration a continuous action, and further that it remains itself unaltered even after the completion of its work and consequently is capable of renewing it at every favorable opportunity.” 8

According to our theory the new formation is the result of the action of the specific energies of the cells that originally played the dominant rôle in forming them. We may suppose that the reconstruction of the amputated organs is due to the building power of the energy units which remain. Thus when certain parts of the structure of an animal are destroyed, repair is due to the electric strain or unbalance which is then established. The growth of organs and parts ceases when the stage of dynamic equilibrium is reached ; the removal of a part upsets equilibrium, and hence growth proceeds until equilibrium is again established. It must be assumed that the reproduction of severed parts in less differentiated forms is along the lines of original growth, and that the first cells formed were probably

of a lower order than the later more highly differentiated cells. We may suppose that cells can form cells of the same or of lower types but never higher types of cells, just as the nucleus can organize cytoplasm but cytoplasm cannot organize a nucleus. We may conclude then that “regeneration is nothing else than a particular case of generation or reproduction and that the nature of one is substantially identical with that of the other; for, to use the words of Delage, ‘generation is only the regeneration of a complete organism by a portion of greater or less size attached to it or detached from it’; so the causes of the regeneration, for instance, of a little disc of skin which has been renewed must be essentially the same as those which effect a complete reproduction." ?

If the removal of one testicle or one mammary gland during development is followed by an enlargement of the other, it indicates that forces at a distance are capable of controlling their growth—1.e., the organism has a quota of specific energy which may be drawn upon selectively. If this is true in the case of the partially developed organism, may there not be a quota of specifie energy which may be drawn upon selectively to organize the “amorphous” testicle or ovary in the sex cells? And in like manner one would suppose that each essential organ or tissue has а quota or ratio of specifie energy, the exercise of which controls corresponding elements in the sex cells.

When a unicellular organism 1s divided in such a manner that each part includes portions of the nucleus and of the cytoplasm, the nuclear fragments will organize new individuals. In like manner the nuclei of the sex cells may organize the cytoplasmic part into an organism in which the nucleus becomes the nervous system and continues to govern the organized cytoplasmic portions. This point of view 1s not discordant with that of many investigators. Thus Cope makes the statement that heredity may be considered as “the transmission of a special energy from a point of stimulus to the germ cells, and its composition there with the emphytogenetie (inherited) energy into bathmism (or evolutionary energy)" 19; and Rignano adds :— From this he (Cope) at once draws the conclusion that as soon as a new character is acquired by the soma in consequence of a definite stimulus, it appears at the same time in the germ-plasm also." !!

“We may compare the building of the embryo to the unfolding of a record or memory which is stored in the central nervous system of the parent and impressed in greater or less part on the germ-plasm during its construction, in the order in which it was stored. This record may be supposed to be woven into the texture of every organic cell and to be destroyed by specialization in modified cells in proportion as they are incapable of reproducing anything but themselves.” 12

lf for germ-plasm we substitute specific energy pattern, this conception would apply to our own thesis. Another illustration by Rignano is especially pertinent to our conception : "Finally a number of organs which would attain their complete development through the ontogenetic stimulus alone, have their development hastened by the accidental intervention before the proper time of the requisite functional stimulus. Thus, for example, in prematurely born children the visual sense develops . earlier; that is to say, its development is accomplished in a total number of days, counting from the first instant of development, that is smaller than the ordinary number such as would be given by the time of ordinary gestation augmented by the number of days necessary for the infant born at term to acquire the same degree of development of sight. And this demonstrates again, that the functional stimulus can replace the ontogenetic stimulus, or better that it can coóperate with it and add itself to it, thus strengthening its effect; a thing which would be difficult to concelve of were the two stimuli of different nature." 13

That energy from a distance can organize elements in equilibrium into energy transforming mechanisms is shown by the fact that the simplest unicellular organisms are organized by the energy of the sun's rays. The whole organic world has been and is being organized by energy transmitted from the distance of the sun. Surely then the sun's energy released within an animal may be capable of organizing energy systems in every part of the organism including the sex cells. When a rose or an apple tree is grafted the graft will produce a flower or fruit after its own kind and unlike the flower or the fruit of the bush or tree in which the graft was implanted. But the tree which in turn grows from the seed of the flower or fruit of the graft will in turn produce not the apple or rose of the

graft, but an apple or rose like the tree or bush in -which the graft was implanted. Why did the seed from the fruit of the graft not produce a tree whose fruit was like its own fruit? It could only be because influences from the remainder of the tree sent organizing energy into the bud and fruit of the graft creating a miniature “pre-form” of the original apple tree in the seed ; just as the organizing energy of animals creates in the sex cells new animals bearing the characteristics of the parent. The organizing power in each case is energy which “works” the sex cell—the plastic “clay” in the construction of new form. The same vibrant energy undoubtedly reaches all the other cells in the organism, but only the sex cells have the property of plastic adaptation. The specific response of a muscle cell is movement; of the visual cell is sight; of a digestive cell is the production of digestive juice; of the thyroid cell is the production of thyroxin ; of the sex cell is the production of the new animal or plant. For the creation of the new animal in the sex cell every type of tissue and every organ must contribute its specific part. The cell is as it were a specialized garden in which each of the several organs and tissues through the medium of its specific energy plants its seed. The sex cell during the period of this implantation is passive and plastic; and these specific potential structures lie dormant until fertilization provides energy for the growth and assimilation. The reproductive cell then becomes detached from the energy system of the parent, and the embryonic muscle units, nerve units, liver units, etc., assimilate energy, and then by their own specific energy develop until the entire animal is reproduced. The creator is specific energy ; that which is transmitted is specific energy.

In brief, then, our conception may be summarized аз follows: Аз in the adult individual, his personality—his individual characteristics result from specific vibrations in this or that part of his organism in response to environmental influences, the sum total of these electric responses constituting his or her personality; so in the offspring these initial specific vibrations carried through the development of the new individual in external form, in so-called “mental” characteristics, in physiological and in “psychic” tendencies, will determine the personality—the individual characteristics of the new indi-

vidual. And moreover, just as the most facilitated pathways in the adult individual are most influential in establishing the "personality" of the adult, so the strongest characteristics as manifested in the vibrations and electric characteristics of the sex cells will in the main determine the personality of the offspring. According to this conception, the fertilized ovum would verily be the man in miniature, just as the atom with its central positive nucleus and its negative electrons is a solar system in miniature. In every type of structure from the atom through the most complex chemical compositions to the solar system, this fundamental law of arrangement holds; with infinite variations in arrangement of the positive and negative elements but all holding true to one fundamental principle.

The size and the nature of the atom cannot be directly established. They are determined by reasoning from indirect but tangible evidence. So for the apparently amorphous, fertiliged ovum we may reasonably attempt to apply indirect but tangible evidence to determine its organization and potentialities. Ir is not expected that either the argument or the evidence which we have presented in support of our conception that man and animals are bipolar mechanisms will prove finally convincing; the only evidence whereby any theory regarding the laws in accordance with which the organism operates can be finally established will be either the successful construction of an organic cell or the ultimate subjection to experimental test of every so-called psychic as well as every obviously physical organic phenomenon. The impossibility of creating a living being on the model of a living being, however, does not invalidate the theory any more than the existence and structure of the atom is invalidated because man cannot construct an atom. Іп this connection, however, we may point out that whether or not man will ever construct a living being he nevertheless has constructed motor and receptor mechanisms which in manys ways compare in sensitivity to the mechanism of living beings. I refer in particular to the apparatus for the reception and amplification of radio waves, photo-electric cells, ete.

Moreover, we do know the living cell and the atom have a similar physical pattern of structure, and a similar arrangement of their physical forces; and that in each the internal stress as well as the internal balance is similarly staged. Is it then possible to identify a law which governs alike inorganic and organic evolution and points the line of evolution from the atom to man? An evenly balanced atom such as helium, between whose positive nucleus and two negative electrons there is no unbalance, through all time would go on in complete neutrality neither giving nor receiving energy. But a highly unbalanced

atom such as hydrogen, with its highly positive nucleus only partially balanced or satisfied by its single negative electron, is vigorously attracted by negative atoms. In the hydrogen atom there is a difference in potential in a bipolar unit of the smallest dimensions. This potential energy—unbalance—and this form of bipolarism is probably identical with the unbalance which is the basic condition of life; but it is not life as we know it; perhaps the principal reason being that this bipolar mechanism, the hydrogen atom, is so far beyond the range of our senses. But if we could place millions of these infinitesimal particles of positive electricity on one side of an exceedingly thin film—4/10,000,000 of a centimeter in thickness—with negative charges on the opposite side, and if we could adaptively charge and discharge these films in work and function, then in the aggregate we would find the hydrogen atom an essential part of a living organism. A single brick is not a building; but millions of bricks with other material may be arranged into many buildings; so a single hydrogen atom is not a living being, but countless numbers of hydrogen atoms with other elements may be arranged into living beings.

It may be supposed that it is the disturbance in the carbon atom caused by the sun’s energy that endows the carbon atom with the energy which in combination with hydrogen it carries with it into the cells of animals where it is released in the electrie process of oxidation. Thus, energy available for building living beings or for the use of living beings comes from the sun. Chemical action is identical with electric action, for it is the attraction and the repulsion of unbalanced negative and positive elements that makes compounds, solutions, colloids. If there were no atomic, no intermolecular, no interfacial electric phenomena, there would be no compounds, no solutions, no colloids, no life. The atom, the compound, the solution, the colloid, contain as much energy outside as within the living cell, the difference being that in their existence as separate entities the electric energy is balanced and since no difference in potential is established, there is no free energy such as is seen in, and is characteristic of, the living. In addition to the interatomic, intermolecular, interfacial forces, living organisms require free energy between positive and negative poles which

are separated from each other by a sufficient distance so that the current flowing between the poles may by a trigger action release a continuous stream of new energy to perform work. This energy, when governed by the environmental forces, becomes available for the various forms of work and function needed for survival. A bipolar mechanism with films adapted for accumulating an electric charge for its release for the oxidation required to meet the needs of survival is a living thing.

It is not necessary that the negative or cytoplasmic part of the cell should be continuous, or that it should be bound only to one nucleus. For example, Kofoid and others have shown that in certain stages of the life cycle of certain unicellular organisms there may be one continuous cytoplasm with many nuclei of varying size and shape. (Fig. 60.) This is a crucial point in a consideration of the evolution of living matter, for on this basis we can see how a vast amount of the negative colloids in the form of sea-water, mud, soil, might be looked upon as a vast negative mass of cytoplasm; and minute masses of positive colloids, each surrounded by thin films with a high oxidative capacity, might well be considered as positive nuclei.

These positive nuclei we may regard as bacteria. А baeterium might thus be regarded as a first “step-up” from the uniform colloid, occupying together with millions of other like positive nuclei (bacteria) a common cytoplasm—sea-water, soil, mud, ete. If this conception be correct, then we would expect to find that bacteria (nuclei) would stain like the nuclei of cells; and so they do. Since bacteria (nuclei) depend for their existence on a difference in potential between them and their cytoplasm, we would expect to find that bacteria are sensitive to the hydrogen ion concentration of the media; and this is so. For the same reason we would not expect that bacteria could successfully compete for energy—life—with the nuclei of cells; bacteria are rarely found in the nuclei of cells. Bacteria, then, in terms of the bipolar theory, are multiple positive nuclei, occupying in common a continuous negative cytoplasm.

By a fortuitous circumstance, a bacterium might at some moment have acquired for itself some of the cytoplasm or negative colloid which it had shared with other bacteria, and so it would have become independent of the common mass of rr li m and. E UI Е uM s. и bipolar mechanism, both Е whose poles | were pr * the molecule, the solution, the colloid and animals in turn are _ developed into the larger more complicated forms by progressive | E additions and changes in these bipolar chemical units. (Fig.

Iw the introductory chapter of this thesis have been indicated the successive investigations which led to the development of the bipolar theory. Of primary importance were the histologi- са] researches, the findings in which suggested the postulate that the unit cells of the organism are electric cells. For this reason the following brief summary of these studies, which included 2,670 experiments on animals and many observations on man, is offered here.

The Central Nervous System.—The cells of the central nervous system, especially those of the cortex and the cere bellum, were studied in animals which had been subjected to prolonged insomnia, to the injection of toxins, to infection, to the injection of foreign proteins. We studied the brain cells in animals which had been activated in varying degrees from the stage of excitation to that of complete exhaustion by running, by fighting, by rage, by fear, by physical injury, by the injection of strychnin, by the injection of adrenalin. We studied the brains of salmon caught at the mouth of the Columbia River and compared our findings with those in salmon caught at the headwaters. We studied the brain cells of electric fish before and after the partial or complete discharge of their electric organs. We studied the brains of hibernating woodehueks. We studied the brains of humans who had died from hemorrhage, from acidosis, from eclampsia, from cancer, from hyperthyroidism. We studied the brains of animals after excision of the liver and of the adrenals; and after short and long periods of anesthesia with ether and with nitrous oxid. In every instance we found identical histologic changes, chromatolysis and a loss of differential stainability of the nucleus and

cytoplasm in the stage of exhaustion, while in animals killed in the stage of excitation, the differential stainability was increased. Of crucial importance in its relation to the inception of the bipolar theory was the finding that in dogs in which the circulation of the head of each dog was anastomosed with the circulation of the body of the other dog (double-crossed circulation) and one dog was subjected to severe abdominal injury, brain cell changes appeared only in the brain of the injured dog.

The injection of adrenalin caused immediate increase in the differential stainability of the brain cells followed by a de creased stainability. In double-crossed circulation experiments brain cell changes occurred only in the dog whose brain received the adrenalin; and the characteristic circulatory and respiratory changes appeared first (by a minute or more) т the dog whose brain recewed the adrenalin. After excision of the adrenals and of the liver the differential stainability of the brain cells progressively decreased.

The Liver.—All of the stimuli which produced changes in the brain cells produced constant changes in the cells of the liver. In the stage of exhaustion the cells stained poorly, the cytoplasm was vacuolated, the nuclei were crenated, the cell membranes were irregular, the most marked changes appearing in the cells of the periphery of the lobules. The Adrenals.—The application of the exhaustion-producing factors listed above in most instances produced destructive changes in the cells of the cortex of the adrenals.

In one group of experiments in which rabbits were subjected to protracted insomnia the cells of every organ and tissue of the body were examined and histologic changes were found only in the cells of the central nervous system, the liver and the adrenals. In a series of experiments in which a protracted period of insomnia was followed by varying periods of rest and sleep we fonnd that brain cells in which the differential stainability was lost and the nuclear membrane was ruptured were not restored. Our findings indicated that the length of time required for the restoration of the cells was in direct relation

. Morphin and nitrous oxid anesthesia promoted the restora- _ tion of the brain cells to their normal stainability ; but the most potent restorative agent was normal sleep. .. These histologic studies which indicated that the PITE of _ the animals studied was in direct relation. to the differential _ Stainability of the brain and liver cells, led to a consideration of the essential structure of the cells with the resultant conclusions that variations in stainability indieate variations in _ Фе acid-alkali balance between the colloid content of the nucleus and that of the cytoplasm of the cells, hence to variations in ` potential. Our attention, therefore, was directed to the appli- E: cation of biophysical maids to the study of the function of the cells.

Ir we are right in our assumption that the brain is the part of highest potential in the organism—the positive pole—then we would expect to find evidence that the rate of oxidation in the brain is higher than in any other tissue. We would also expect to find that as the result of stimulation the positive and negative poles—the brain and the liver—would respond in opposite directions, thereby increasing the difference in potential between them. Since an increase in the activity of cells is due in part to an increased permeability of the lipoid semi-permeable films which surround the cells, then if the above assumption is correct we should expect to find that the electric conductivity of the brain is increased and the electric conductivity of the liver is decreased by stimulation. Moreover, since in accordance with the above assumption every alteration in functional activity would be accomplished by variations in the permeability of the cell membranes, then it would follow that every variation in functional activity from whatever cause would be accompanied by alterations in electric conductivity.