Wishes JSBS to look over an abstract of his Drosera experiments and to answer some questions on it.
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The Charles Darwin Collection
The Darwin Correspondence Project is publishing letters written by and to the naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882). Complete transcripts of letters are being made available through the Project’s website (www.darwinproject.ac.uk) after publication in the ongoing print edition of The Correspondence of Charles Darwin (Cambridge University Press 1985–). Metadata and summaries of all known letters (c. 15,000) appear in Ɛpsilon, and the full texts of available letters can also be searched, with links to the full texts.
Wishes JSBS to look over an abstract of his Drosera experiments and to answer some questions on it.
Would welcome JSBS visit to discuss Drosera. Nitrogenous fluids can act as ferments only if they act merely by exciting molecular movement in adjoining molecules.
Glass and cotton excite movement and cause cell contents to change visibly. Huxley coming to see this phenomenon.
Studied effect of poisons 12 or 15 years ago to see whether the action was similar to that on nervous tissue.
Describes his recent work on Drosera digestion of organic materials, e.g., albumen and gelatin. Edward Frankland has given CD a rough test for pepsin. Some plant extracts cause as much inflection as meat. Has found some reversible inflection with heat and perhaps some heat rigor. Has measured the extreme sensitivity of Drosera with very dilute solution of ammonium phosphate.
Thinks it would be worth while testing for electrical changes in the leaves of insectivorous plants.
Pleased JSBS has decided to work on Drosera; sends plants. Does not know whether thermo-electric pile could detect temperature change when leaves close.
CD’s experiment with very weak hydrochloric acid repeated with success: the plants digest albumen more quickly.
Thanks JSBS for telegraphing his results, which seem very remarkable; feels he should now try Drosera.
Very pleased at JSBS’s discovery ["On the electrical phenomena which accompany the contractions of the leaf of Dionaea muscipula", Rep. BAAS 43 (1873): 133].
Asks for pure animal substances [proteins] for Drosera experiments. His other sources have been T. L. Brunton, Edward Frankland, W. A. Miller (now dead), and Hoffmann of Berlin [A. W. von Hofmann?].
Hears from Frank [Darwin] that Drosera behaves perversely. Suggests that motor influence may move longitudinally away from the excited glands.
Frankland is sending JSBS organic acids for him to try artificial digestion. CD will send globulin and haemoglobin.
Sends the very little globulin and haemoglobin he has to be tested with artificial gastric juice. He could get more from Samuel William Moore. Perhaps T. L. Brunton knows about the digestion of chlorophyll by animals.
Suggests experiments on artificial digestion.