Evidence for Linear Units within Protoplasm

Abstract

IN his contribution to the ” First Report on Viscosity and Plasticity”, H. J. Jordan¹ has quoted only the measurements by W. Seifriz on protoplasm in 1924. But L. V. Heilbrunn does not find any conclusive evidence for elastic behaviour, apart from those cases where definite fibrillar elements can be observed in the protoplasm. In some recent papers, I have demonstrated the anomalous flow of protoplasm² and determined certain values interpreted as moduli of dilatability, transversal contraction and gliding³. Both the anomalous behaviour of protoplasm under varied shearing stresses and its elasticity are dependent on a structural organization of protoplasm not with respect to its grosser parts such as the nucleus, but in regard to the actual chemical molecules of which it consists⁴. So the next task was to find any substantial evidence for fibrillar or linear units within the protoplasm submitted to a stress along a definite axis.