Response in the Living and Non-Living

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Response in the Living and Non-Living is written by Jagadish Chandra Bose and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. It's available with International Standard Book Number or ISBN identification 1548845817 (ISBN 10) and 9781548845810 (ISBN 13).

SIR JAGADISH CHANDRA BOSE was one of the first scientists in the world to undertake interdisciplinary research by looking at plants from the vantage point of physics. He subjected plant and animal tissues to various kinds of stimulus, and found that they all showed an electric response. Finding that this reaction occurred in metals as well as plants and animals, he then proceeded to study the differences in response under various conditions. He found that all materials are numbed by cold, intoxicated by alcohol, wearied by excessive work, stupefied by anesthetics, excited by electric currents, stung by physical blows, and killed by poison. They all exhibit essentially the same reactions of fatigue and depression, together with the capacity for recovery and strength, and also permanent unresponsiveness, or death. All materials are responsive or unresponsive under the same conditions and in the same manner. His investigations showed that in the entire range of responses-regardless of whether the subject is metallic, plant or animal-there are no exceptions. The living response, in all its diverse modifications, is a repetition of the responses seen in the inorganic. Further, the nature of the response is determined not by the play of an unknowable and arbitrary vital force, but by laws that do not change, and act equally and uniformly throughout both organic and inorganic matter. This realization was always at the core of his work. He sought to show that all materials react to their environments according to the same laws; in other words, everything exists in the same field of consciousness: Om Namah Shivaya. This book was originally published in 1902. Contents Introduction by Paramahansa Yogananda (from Autobiography of a Yogi) 1. The mechanical response of living substances 2. Electric response 3. Electric response in plants - method of negative variation 4. Electric response in plants - block method 5. Plant response - on the effects of single stimulus and of superposed stimuli 6. Plant response - on diphasic variation 7. Plant response - on the relation between stimulus and response 8. Plant response - on the influence of temperature 9. Plant response - effect of anaesthetics and poisons 10. Response in metals 11. Inorganic response - modified apparatus to exhibit response in metals 12. Inorganic response - method of ensuring consistent results 13. Inorganic response - molecular mobility: its influence on response 14. Inorganic response - fatigue, staircase, and modified response 15. Inorganic response - relation between stimulus and response 16. Inorganic response - effect of chemical reagents 17. On the stimulus of light and retinal currents 18. Inorganic response - influence of various conditions on the response to stimulus of light 19. Visual analogues - Effect of light of short duration 20. Conclusion