Phæodium

“ The phæodella, or the pigment-corpuscles, which compose the phæodium, aggregated in hundreds, and in the bigger species in thousands, are usually spherical, sometimes somewhat ellipsoidal, at other times spheroidal or lenticular; but usually numerous smaller, irregular, roundish particles are intermingled between the larger and more regular corpuscles, and often the main mass forms a very fine black powder. The size of the phæodella is very variable, not only in the different species, but also in one and the same individual. ”

“ Nevertheless it is possible that the phæodellæ of the Phæodaria (usually green, olive, or brown in colour) , which are true cells, represent vegetable symbiontes, which in the absence of sunlight are able to evolve oxygen by the aid of the phosphoresence of other abyssal animals. Since the Phæodaria are, for the most part, dwellers in the deep-sea, and since the voluminous phæodium must be of great physiological importance, a positive solution of this hypothetical question would be of no small interest (compare § 89) . ”

“ In the upper part of the shell-cavity is visible the sphæroidal central capsule (containing a nucleus of half the size, with numerous nucleoli) ; in the lower half the dark pigment-masses of the green phæodium. Fig. 3. Euphysetta amphicodon, n. sp., × 300 1670 The shell-wall exhibits the regular alveolate structure. From the mouth are prominent large masses of the phæodium, which is more voluminous than the shell-cavity, and seems to contain nucleated cells. ”

“ In the centre is visible the large, spheroidal, tripylean central capsule, with its three openings, containing a large nucleus with numerous nucleoli. Its oral half is covered with the dark phæodium. The voluminous spherical calymma contains numerous globular alveoles and its surface is covered with scattered, stirrup-shaped pieces of the skeleton. Numerous free pseudopodia arise from the surface. ”

“ It is surrounded on the oral half by a red or dark phæodium and separated from the inner surface of the shell by the voluminous calymma. The subspherical nucleus is usually about half as broad as the capsule. ”

“ The Nucleus always lies centrally in the Spumellaria monozoa and is serotinous, for it divides only at a later period into the nuclei of the spores; in the Spumellaria polyzoa it is precocious, and divides early into many small nuclei. (3) The Pseudopodia are exceedingly numerous and distributed evenly over the whole surface of the central capsule. (4) The Calymma contains no phæodium. (5) The Skeleton is seldom wanting, is never centrogenous, and is always siliceous. (6) The Ground-form of the central capsule is originally spherical (often modified) ”

“ Cœlodendrum cervicorne, n. sp., × 150 1736 One valve of the shell, with its galea and the four tubes arising from it. A network of protoplasm connects the distal branches. Fig. 9. Cœlodrymus ancoratus, n. sp., × 50 1738 A complete specimen, with the central capsule and the enveloping phæodium. The surface of the spherical calymma is covered by a dense network, from which arise numerous, anchor-bearing, radial tubules. ”

“ Physiological chemistry has shown similar changes in death in great number. All these facts prove that in the death of living cell-substance certain chemical compounds undergo transformations; hence substances exist in it which are not to be found in dead cell-substance.”
[25] In 1892. An English translation of Bütschli’s work on Microscopic Foams and Protoplasm, by E. A. Minchin, appeared in 1894. The nucleus is really a form of protoplasm, chiefly differentiated from the ‘cytoplasm,’ or protoplasm of the cell, by containing a large amount of phosphorus. ”

“ Since 1926, however, the name phosphagens has been reserved for a group of organic substances that release their phosphoric acid very readily. The link between phosphorus and carbon is provided by oxygen in the phosphatides, by nitrogen in the phosphagens. In vertebrates, the basis for the phosphoric acid is creatine, whereas invertebrates have arginine instead.
Creatine Phosphate
Arginine phosphate Nuclein and Nucleic Acids
All parts of an organism are essential for life. Only with this in mind does it make sense to say that the most important part of the cell is its nucleus. ”

“ To understand life, therefore, we must understand protoplasm; for protoplasm, closely as it approximates to colloid matter, is thoroughly alive. A whole family, the Monera, consist simply of a living globule of jelly, which has not even begun to be differentiated. Every molecule, as in a crystal, is of homogeneous chemical composition and an epitome of the whole mass. There are no special parts, no organs told off for particular functions, and yet all life-functions—nutrition, reproduction, sensation, and movement—are performed, but each by the whole body. ”

“ Every living creature from a man to a mushroom, or even to the smallest animalcule or unicellular plant is always partly fluid, but never entirely so. Every living creature also consists in part (and that part is the most active living part) of a soft, viscid, transparent, colorless substance, termed protoplasm, which can be resolved into the four elements, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon. Besides these four elements, living organisms commonly contain sulphur, phosphorus, chlorine, potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium and iron. ”

“ In both we find a similar semi-fluid matter called protoplasm, which has been defined as ‘the physical basis of life.’ In the cellular tissues of many plants this fluid may, with a sufficiently high magnifying power, be seen in a state of ceaseless activity. It is composed of four elements, namely carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. An analogous substance is found in white of egg, and protoplasm itself is one of the constituents of blood. ”

“ In the system of chemistry, as it developed in the first half of the 19th century, the new development can be characterized as the turn from inorganic to organic phosphates, from the substance of minerals and strong chemical interactions to the components in which phosphate groups remained combined with carbon-containing substances.
Phosphatides and Phosphagens
The important phosphorus compounds in organisms are much more complex than the simple salts, to which Nietzsche attributed such influence on man’s character. ”

“ These animals are evidently taking in oxygen by osmosis. They are breathing. A careful inspection of the jar containing paramœcia shows thousands of tiny whitish bodies collected near the surface of the jar. In the paramœcium, as in the one-celled plants, the protoplasm composing the cell responds to certain agencies acting upon it, coming from without; these agencies we call stimuli. Such stimuli may be light, differences of temperature, presence of food, electricity, or other factors of its surroundings. Plant and animal cells may react differently to the same stimulus. ”

“ In many cases the light appears to possess some important function, and highly specialized organs are developed. In such cases the light is only emitted in response to some stimulus—thus, the phosphorescence of the surface water of the sea, when disturbed by the blade of an oar, is due to the disturbance of myriads of minute planktonic organisms, equipped with phosphorescent organs, either protozoa or protophyta; many pelagic copepods are phosphorescent. In other cases, phosphorescence appears to be a more or less accidental by-product of some other process, and of little or no significance. ”

“ Some move about by the aid of a flagellum, or long whip-like projection of their bodies, by which they lash the surrounding waters, and which, unlike the pseudopodia of Amœba, can not, during active life, be withdrawn into the general protoplasm of the body; while among many others locomotion is effected by means of cilia—microscopic vibratile hairs, which are distributed in various ways over the surface, and which, like the pseudopodia and flagella, are simple prolongations of their protoplasm. ”

“ There is a wide gap between the inorganic world and all organisms, vegetable or animal. We are, however, told that when certain inorganic elements are combined, under certain conditions, they form protoplasm,—a substance manifesting phenomena of vitality. The elements are known,—the conditions are unknown,—and until protoplasm has been produced by a chemical experi [Pg 180] menter, instead of within a living laboratory, we may safely believe that the unknown conditions form the essential cause of the production. ”

“ Thus, the animal can only raise the complex substance of dead protoplasm to the higher power, as one may say, of living protoplasm; while the plant can raise the less complex substances—carbonic acid, water, and ammonia—to the same stage of living protoplasm, if not to the same level. ”

“ It is often enormously developed and forms a very important tissue in roots. In the stem of a tree the original phellogen is replaced by successive new phellogenic layers of deeper and deeper origin, each forming its own layer of cork. Eventually the new phellogens reach the level of the secondary phloem, and are formed in the parenchyma of the latter, keeping pace in their inward march with the formation of fresh secondary phloem by the cambium. ”

“ Phosphorescence is still more curiously exemplified by holding a sheet of white paper, a calcined oyster-shell, or even the hand, in the sun's rays, and then retiring quickly to a darkened room, when they appear to be luminous, and visible even after the light has ceased to fall upon them. ”

“ The pseudopodia are lobose, sometimes absent, the body then progressing by a flowing movement; the body consists of ectoplasm and endoplasm, the latter being granular and internal, the former hyaline and external. There is always one nucleus and one vacuole, but both may be more numerous. Reproduction takes place by division or by spore-formation. ”

“ When William Crookes drew his highly imaginative picture of an “evolution” of the chemical elements, he put into it “phosphorus for the brain, salt for the sea, clay for the solid earth....” [30] But phosphatides occur in many places of organisms, in bacteria, in leaves and roots of plants, in fat and tissues of animals. And where phosphatides are found, there are also enzymes that specifically act on them. They are called phosphatases to imply that they split the phosphatides. In addition, enzymes are present, which transfer phosphate groups from one compound to another. ”

“ The protoplasm of the living plant-cell looks like a slimy translucent mass which has been superficially compared in appearance to well-boiled sago or clear gum. Fifty years of observations and experiments with it have convinced physiologists that it is not a mere solution or emulsion, however, or even a chemical compound in the ordinary sense of the term, although chemical analysis gets little out of it beyond water, proteids, carbohydrates and fats, and traces of certain mineral salts ”

“ The communications between the successive chambers, and between the last chambers and the exterior (whether formed by a single large aperture as in Miliola, or by the multiplication of smaller pores as in Peneroplis,) are very free; having to give passage not merely to stolons which are subservient to the multiplication of segments, but to bands of sarcode-substance large enough to transmit with facility, to the segments that are furthest removed from the exterior, the nutrient materials obtained by the pseudopodia which issue from the last alone. ”

“ The first two contain nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon, while fat and starch are rich in carbon, but lack nitrogen. In tracing back the development of living matter to its simplest form, it is found to exist as specks without any definite shape or structure, or as granules of extreme minuteness, perhaps the ten thousandth part of an inch in diameter.
This elemental living matter is called protoplasm. Its simplest form is termed a cell, and the word is applied to little bodies varying much in form. Thus some cells are really little bags filled with fluid. ”

“ It may encompass and contain solid bodies, and it may “secrete” within or around itself solid substances; and very often in the complex living organism these solid substances formed by the living protoplasm, like shell or nail or horn or feather, may remain when the protoplasm which formed them is dead and gone; but the protoplasm itself is fluid or semifluid, and accordingly permits of free (though not necessarily rapid) diffusion and easy convection of particles within itself. ”

“ The two processes are always going on during the active life of the protoplasm: in fact life consists in the play of these processes, as already said.
That numerous chemical rearrangements of the atom-complexes take place outside the protoplasmic molecules—both of those left unemployed in assimilation and of those rejected during the destructive processes—will be readily understood: many of the bye-products found in plants, such as vegetable acids, alkaloids, colouring matters, crystalline bodies, etc., etc., are due to these, so to speak, fortuitous combinations and re-combinations. ”

“ Plants will not thrive unless both their leaves and roots be exposed to air in some degrees impure. This I have fully ascertained, but I am afraid that the doctrine is not capable of much practical application.
‘I know of no method of conveying phlogiston to the roots of plants but as combined with water, and this seems to be done in the best way by a mixture of putrid matter. Water will not imbibe much inflammable air. I find volatile alkali to contain much phlogiston. ”