[175] For our purpose his views are best summed up in his The Organism as a Whole from a Physiochemical Viewpoint, 1916, 379 pp. See more specifically his “Natural Death and Duration of Life,” Science, 1919, p. 578 et seq.
[176] Prof. W. J. V. Osterhout, “On the Nature of Life and Death,” Science, April 15, 1921, thinks that we can measure by quantitative methods such fundamental conceptions as vitality, injury, recovery, and death, by electrical resistance, which, he thinks, is an excellent index of what is normal condition. He believes that this holds for both plants and animals, for all agents known to be injurious change the electrical resistance at once. He also thinks this resistance proportional to a substance he believes he found and decomposed by a series of consecutive reactions and that on this basis we can write an equation that permits us to predict the course of the death process under various conditions, so that we can say that at a certain stage it is one-fourth or one-half completed. Stated chemically, the normal life process consists of a series of reactions in which a substance O is broken down into S, and this in turn breaks down into A, M, B, and so on. “Under normal conditions M is formed as readily as it is decomposed and this results in a constant condition of the electrical resistance and other properties of the cell. When, however, conditions are changed so that M is decomposed more rapidly than it is formed, the electrical resistance decreases” and other properties are simultaneously altered. Thus death results from a disturbance in the relative rates of the reactions that constantly go on.
[177] Sci. Mo., Aug., 1921.
[178] Sci. Mo., Apr., 1921.
[179] Genevieve Grandcourt, “The Immortality of Tissues: Its Bearing on the Study of Old Age,” Sci. Am., Oct. 20, 1912. Also “What is Old Age?: Carrel’s Research on the Mechanism of Physical Growth,” Sci. Am., Nov. 23, 1918.
C. Pozzi, “Vie Manifestée Permanente de La Tissue,” La Preusse Médicale, p. 532.
Alexis Carrel, “Present Condition of a Strain of Connective Tissue Twenty-eight Months Old,” Jour. Exper. Med., July 1, 1914, and “Contributions to the Study of the Mechanism of the Growth of Connective Tissue,” Jour. Exper. Med., Sept., 1913. See also Science, vol. 36, 1912, p. 789.
[180] “Geschlechtstrieb und echt sekundäre Geschlechtsmerkmale als Folge der Innersekretorischen Funktion der Keimdrüsen,” Zeit. f. Physiologie, Sept., 1910.
[181] “Pubertätsdrüsen und Zwitterbildung,” Archiv. f. Entwicklung der Organismen, vol. 42, 1916, pp. 307–332.
[182] “Erhöhte Wirkungen der inneren Sekretion bei Hypertrophie der Pubertätsdrüsen,” Archiv. f. Entwicklungsmechanik der Organismen, vol. 42, 1916, pp. 490–507.