ANALYSIS OF FORM REGULATION WITH THE AID OF ANÆSTHETICS

Abstract

During the last year and a half the writer has carried on an extensive series of experiments on the influence of certain anaesthetics on the course and results of form regulation in Planaria dorotocephala Woodworth. Since the method has proved to be of considerable value and since it will be some time before the results of these and other experiments planned for the future can be presented in full, it seems desirable to present briefly and without extended comment the most important features of the work up to date as an illustration of the value of the method and the results to be attained by it. In my experiments thus far I have used chiefly alcohol, ether and acetone-chloroform, known commercially as chloretone. Although alcohol is much less strongly anaesthetic than many other substances its action is in general similar in kind to that of the substances commonly known as anaesthetics. The results with the three substances mentioned are practically identical so far as the more general features are concerned, though various differences of detail appear, which need not be considered here. Incidentally, however, it may be noted that these differences in the effects of the different anaesthetics serve to some extent as a means of determining the specific differences in the effects of different anaesthetics on the metabolic processes: how far they will prove to be of value in this direction only the future can determine.