[257] Loeb, J., and Chamberlain, M. M., _Jour. Exper. Zoöl._, 1915, xix., 559.
---------------+------------- | _Latitude _Temperature_ | of | Variation_ ---------------+------------- °C. | _Minutes_ 9 | 52.5 10 | 39.5 11 | 26.0 12 | 22.5 13 | 19.2 14 | 17.5 15 | 13.0 18 | 12.0 19 | 12.5 20 | 9.6 21 | 8.0 22 | 7.8 23 | 8.0 24 | 8.0 25 | 5.0 ---------------+-------------
--------------+------------------------------ | TEMPERATURE COEFFICIENT OF +-------------+---------------- _Temperature | _Latitude | Interval_ | of | _Segmentation_ | Variation_ | --------------+-------------+---------------- °C. | | 9-19 | 4.2 | 4.7 10-20 | 3.9 | 3.8 11-21 | 3.2 | 3.3 12-22 | 2.8 | 3.1 13-23 | 2.4 | 2.8 14-24 | 2.3 | 2.8 15-25 | 2.6 | 2.5 --------------+-------------+----------------
If we assume that the temperature coefficient for the segmentation of the egg is that of a chemical reaction (other than oxidation) underlying the process of segmentation, the fluctuating variation in the time of the segmentations of the various eggs fertilized at the same time is due to the fact that the mass of the enzyme controlling that reaction varies within definite limits in different eggs. The first egg segmenting at a given temperature has the maximal, the last egg segmenting has the minimal mass of enzyme. It should be added that the time of the first segmentation is determined by the cytoplasm and is not a Mendelian character, as was stated in a previous chapter.
3. The point of importance to us is that the influence of temperature upon the organism is so constant that if disturbing factors are removed it would be possible to use the time from insemination to the first segmentation of an egg of _Arbacia_ as a thermometer on the basis of the table on page 295.
Facts of this character should dispose of the idea that the organism as a whole does not react with that degree of machine-like precision which we find in the realm of physics and chemistry. Such an idea could only arise from the fact that biologists have not been in the habit of looking for quantitative laws, chiefly, perhaps, because the difficulties due to disturbing secondary factors were too great. The worker in physics knows that in order to discover the laws of a phenomenon all the disturbing factors which might influence the result must first be removed. When the biologist works with an organism as a whole he is rarely able to accomplish this since the various disturbing influences, being inseparable from the life of the organism, can often not be entirely removed. In this case the biologist must look for an organism in which by chance this elimination of secondary conditions is possible. The following example may serve as an illustration of this rather important point in biological work. Although all normal human beings have about the same temperature, yet if the heart-beats of a large number of healthy human beings are measured the rate is found to vary enormously. Thus v. Körösy found among soldiers under the most favourable and most constant conditions of observations--the soldiers were examined early in the morning before rising--variations in the rate of heart-beat between 42 and 108. In view of this fact, those opposed to the idea that the organism as a whole obeys purely physicochemical laws might find it preposterous to imagine that the rate of heart-beat could be used as a thermometer. Yet if we observe the influence of temperature on the rate of the heart-beat of a large number of embryos of the fish _Fundulus_, while the embryos are still in the egg, we find that at the same temperature each heart beats at the same rate, the deviations being only slight and such as the fluctuating variations would demand.[258] This constancy is so great that the rate of heart-beat of these embryos could in fact be used as a rough thermometer. The influence of temperature upon the rate of heart-beat is completely reversible so that when we measure the rate for increasing as well as for decreasing temperatures we get approximately the same values as the following table shows.