Abstract
Macht and Livingston have already shown in connection with a study of cocain and its derivatives that various drugs affect animal and cell protoplasm very differently. Thus it was shown that while cocain is very toxic for animal tissues, it is comparatively little toxic for plant protoplasm. On the other hand, sodium benzoate which is practically non-toxic for animal tissues was found to be extremely toxic for the root of lupinus albus. These observations suggest the idea that plant cells may be much more sensitive to some animal toxins than animal cells or tissues might be. This idea was a starting point for the present investigation. Shick has recently revived or called attention to the ancient popular belief as to the contaminating or deleterious effects of the touch of women at the time of menstruation. He performed a few experimnts on cut flowers seemingly corroborating this idea. The present authors decided to investigate this whole question in a more scientific and accurate way by the use of whole living plant organisms and not cut flowers, inasmuch as the latter method is unreliable for obvious reasons. The procedure was very much the same as in the study of Macht and Livingston on cocain and its derivatives.
Seedlings of lupinus albus were grown in a perfect nutrient medium (Shive solution) and the rate of growth of the single straight well defined root was measured to within one-half of a millimeter. Similar seedlings were grown simultaneously and under exactly the same conditions in Shive solution containing a definite amount, usually 1 per cent. of normal blood serum, and on other occasions exactly the same kind of experiments were performed with solutions containing blood serum obtained from menstruating individuals.
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