Abstract
New methods of locating currents and static potentials in living tissues with the aid of vital staining have been reviewed. Some methods allow quantitative estimates about the distribution of preponderantly extracellular molecules and a few extra-cellular ions in the electronegative space, and preponderantly intra-cellular molecules and anions in the positive space.
With the progress of physical analysis of minerals by spectroscopic analysis or other new methods, it may be expected that the distribution of stained and unstained molecules and ions in the body may be determined automatically in a semi-quantitative way.
In current literature, and in most textbooks of biochemistry excepting part of Abderhalden and Peterfi, the electric fields in filter paper are quite generally reported in a reversed manner. The actual experimental facts demonstrate that the field between R, 0.01 and 0.50 is positive and accumulates negative matter, while the field between Rf 0.50 and 1.00 attracts positive molecules and ions and is itself negative.
The application of these corrections and these findings to the fundamental theories of cytology may prove of considerable importance in elaborating the true modus-vivendi of the cell.
We are indebted to Mrs. Ellen Auerbach for photographing our material so beautifully.
