The Anatomical RecordVolume 131, Issue 3 p. 405-415 Article Design in the nervous system† H. S. Burr, H. S. Burr E. K. Hunt, Professor of Anatomy, Emeritus Yale University School of MedicineSearch for more papers by this author H. S. Burr, H. S. Burr E. K. Hunt, Professor of Anatomy, Emeritus Yale University School of MedicineSearch for more papers by this author First published: July 1958 https://doi.org/10.1002/ar.1091310304Citations: 2 † The substance of a talk given to the Neurological Study Unit at the Yale School of Medicine, December 2, 1957. AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onEmailFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume131, Issue3July 1958Pages 405-415 RelatedInformation

plex anatomical features, and differ from modern man principally in their smaller brain capacity. Still more detailed analysis of the recently discovered South African fossils, of early Pleistocene age, convincingly demonstrates that Australopithecus, and numerous other named types whose generic distinctness is questioned, are clearly erect hominids whose brain size in some individuals did not exceed that of the larger great apes. A final brief chapter treats the scanty evidence for the separation of the Hominidae from the Pongidae during the Pliocene or late Miocene. Recent discoveries probably will require revision of some of the points made here. Professor LeGros Clark writes with economy of words and with great precision, yet with a flowing command of the English language rare in a scientist. He has brought the experience of many years of research on living and fossil Primates to bear upon the theme of man's physical evolution, and distilled the essential data and conclusions from a formidable mass of specialized publication. Ware Sinnott, the distinguished geneticist, faces the age-old problem of the relationship between mind and body. After calling attention to the fact that for science the body of man, as well as other living systems, "is a physico-chemical system which manifests the operation of those laws that are found in lifeless systems," he notes that the continued existence of every living organism is dependent upon the precise ordering of all the chemical entities which make up the soma, though these are in constant flux. It is clear, however, that for many people this cannot be the whole answer, for many have an intuitive feeling that there are in man some characteristics which cannot be defined in terms of physico-chemical laws. This is another way of asserting that, although the body is a physical-chemical machine, it possesses other characters loosely called mind, or soul, or spirit which, in some obscure fashion, manipulate the machine. Thus we have on one hand materialism, and on the other, a mixture of the material with the spiritual. The scientist can only work with the basic assumption that there is "uniformity and dependability of natural law everywhere, even in man." In contrast, many men are quite convinced that to be alive is to be free-free to make choices, free to seek goals, to satisfy desires, and to accept or reject moral law. For Professor Sinnott, this second position requires an adequate answer to the question, …

Journal of Experimental ZoologyVolume 129, Issue 2 p. 327-341 Article Certain electrical properties of the slime mold† Harold Saxton Burr, Harold Saxton Burr Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut It is a pleasure to acknowledge the great help of Mr. Henry Stude, Jr., in designing the bucking circuit.Search for more papers by this author Harold Saxton Burr, Harold Saxton Burr Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut It is a pleasure to acknowledge the great help of Mr. Henry Stude, Jr., in designing the bucking circuit.Search for more papers by this author First published: July 1955 https://doi.org/10.1002/jez.1401290207Citations: 5 † Aided by grants from the Fluid Research Fund of the School of Medicine, and the Eugene Higgins Trust of Yale University. AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Literature Cited Only directly pertinent literature is cited, since the field has been adequately covered by Rosene, and Rosene and Lund, as indicated below. Anderson, J. D., Galvanotaxis of Slime Mold. J. Gen. Physiol., 35: 1– 16. Burr, H. S., and F. S. C. Northrop, 1935 The Electrodynamic Theory of Life. Quart. Rev. Biol., 10: 322– 333 Kamiya, N., and A. Shigemi, 1950 Bioelectric Phenomena in the Myxomycete Plasmodium and Their Relation to Protoplasmic Flow. J. Colloid Science, 5: 149– 163. King, C. D., 1945 The Meaning of Normal. Yale J. Biol. and Med., 17: 493– 501. Lund, E. J., 1947 Bioelectric fields and growth. The Univ. of Texas Press. Austin, Texas. Marsh, G., and H. W. Beams, 1946 Orientation of Chick Nerve Fibers by Direct Electric Currents. Anat. Rec., 94: 28. Rosene, H. F., and E. J. Lund, 1953 Bioelectric Fields and Correlation in Plants. Growth and differentiation in plants, ed. W. E. Loomis, pp. 219– 252. The Iowa State College Press. Tasaki, I., and N. Kamiya, 1950 Electrical Response of a Slime Mold to Mechanical and Electrical Stimuli. Protoplasma, 39: 333– 343. Citing Literature Volume129, Issue2July 1955Pages 327-341 ReferencesRelatedInformation

It has been generally agreed by most investigators that ovulation in the higher primates occurs in the middle of the menstrual cycle. In humans, the ovulation period is believed to fall on or about 14 days, plus or minus twenty-four hours, before the onset of the succeeding menses. The test for ovulation has been records of mating, with subsequent pregnancy, or the recovery of young ova in elective laparotomy. Many studies have been made on ovulation in the monkey, notable among which are the papers of Hartman,' VanWagenen,16 and Allen.' Hartman reported ovulation in rhesus between the 11th and 14th day of the menstrual cycle. VanWagenen's more recent study repQrted that the 11th and 12th days constituted the critical period. Most of the studies commonly quoted indicate the approximate time of ovulation. Pragmatically, determining with certainty the moment of follicular rupture may not be very important. However, if it were known accurately, the age of the corpus luteum could be ascertained within hours, if not minutes. Burr and Musselman"5 noted a series of interesting potential changes between the index fingers in women, followed through successive menstrual cycles. Sharp rises in potential difference occurred during the period when ovulation in women is believed to be most probable. These facts were subsequently confirmed by Barton.2 Paralleling these studies, Burr, Hill, and Allen8 undertook to determine the validity of potential changes during ovulation in the rabbit. In this mammal, ovulation is believed to occur from 9 to 12 hours after mating. An electrical study of this period revealed a sharp rise in potential difference between vagina and symphysis pubis. This was confirmed at laparotomy shortly after cessation of the voltage changes. In one instance, with the ovary inclosed in a suitable chamber where it could be observed with the microscope, a developing follicle was watched while electrometric determinations were being made. As the follicle increased in size, the potential rose and reached a peak at the instant of rupture. This was followed by a decline in the voltage gradient. Subsequently Reboul, Friedgood, and Davis' confirmed these findings and contributed the fact that various stab wounds of abdominal viscera produced no such changes in electrical properties.

approach to the synthesis of therapeutic agents, now based on naive pictorial analogies, with a more rigorously scientific and deductive method. However, this lack, and the absence of an author index, are minor shortcomings of an excellent volume that should have great appeal for students and workers in biochemistry, bacteriology, pharmacology, and physiology. He is one of the few readable expositors of science, for he uses words to clarify and not to obfuscate and, by some magic, invests them with charm. This recent addition to his long list of published works is the substance of the Salmon Memorial Lectures, dealing with frontal lobotomy. It is peculiarly fitting that Dr. Fulton should present this summary, because the original experiments from which the whole procedure was derived, were carried out in his widely known laboratories. The original interest has been kept alive over the years by many devoted associates who developed the carefully planned experimental procedure and made, many important contributions. With his usual modesty, Dr. Fulton pays tribute to those who have contributed to the program, but for the interpretation of the results he takes full responsibility. The major portion of the lectures deals with experimental studies on animals. While much of this work was done in his laboratory, he has not neglected studies completed elsewhere. The last chapter, dealing with lobotomy in man, is a very fair evaluation of the results so far achieved. He calls attention to the fact that as more and more cases are carefully studied, the original radical lobotomy will be, in all probability, replaced by more circumscribed interference with particular frontal lobe mechanisms and their connection with other parts of the central nervous system. Some twenty thousand patients have been subjected to this dissection of "the matrix of the mind." Beneficial results have been achieved in at least half the cases, some of them dramatically. The concluding sentence deserves to be quoted: "The possibilities inherent in lobotomy for returning the mentally ill to a happier and more useful existence provide one of the most challenging problems in medicine today." Much has been learned, but there are many exciting frontiers still to be investigated.

Much has been written and much said about the cancer problem. Large sums of money, large for biological research, but small for investigations in the physical sciences, have been expended in the search for the "cause" of cancer and for its cure. While a considerable number of more or less isolated facts have been discovered, the answer is not yet. Instead of a single factor which gives rise to the atypical growth of malignancy, there seem to be many agents which are possible instigators-constitutional characters (possibly inherited), chemical agents, trauma and mutations, perhaps brought about through endocrine imbalance. The very multiplicity of initiators implies that the answer must be found in some more fundamental property of living systems. It is clear enough that malignancy is a distortion of the characteristic design of the organism. For some reason as yet undiscovered, cells which still retain their capacity for continued multiplication escape from an organismic control. Instead of obeying some set of inherent regulating forces, such dividing units participate in a new growth which, while having definable characteristics, nevertheless departs from the teleological character of normal development. Such considerations make it abundantly clear that the cancer problem is but a special case of the more general central problem of biology, the origin of design or pattern in living systems. The forces inherent in the organism which control morphogenesis, and hence the functions of the whole and its constituent parts, are still unknown. For Aristotle, the regulation was accomplished through the activity, among others, of a "formal cause." Hans Driesch, in modern times, postulated the presence in organisms of a force not amenable to examination by the current techniques of science, which guided and controlled morphogenesis and the continued functioning of the adult. This Entelechy, as he called it, was to be thought of as a supernatural agency outside the present horizons of science. Thus, Driesch aligned himself with the Vitalists who believed in the soul as the directing power. Biologists crucified Driesch for his stand, refusing to admit that there were factors in the living system which were not amenable to rigid description and measurement. Nevertheless, the results of the operation of some sort of powerful, precise forces defining normal and experimentally modified development have rarely been more compellingly described than by this great experimental biologist.

Journal of Experimental ZoologyVolume 113, Issue 1 p. 201-210 Article An electrometric study of cotton seeds Harold Saxton Burr, Harold Saxton Burr Section of Neuro-Anatomy, Yale University School of MedicineSearch for more papers by this author Harold Saxton Burr, Harold Saxton Burr Section of Neuro-Anatomy, Yale University School of MedicineSearch for more papers by this author First published: February 1950 https://doi.org/10.1002/jez.1401130109Citations: 3AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onEmailFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Literature Cited du Bois-Reymond, E. 1848 and 1849 Untersuchen über Thierische Elektrität. II. Berlin, G. Reimer. Burr, H. S. 1943 Electrical correlates of pure and hybrid strains of sweet corn. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., Wash., 29: 163–166. Burr, H. S., and Alexander Mauro 1949 Millivoltmeters. Yale J. Biol. and Med., 21: 249–253. Lund, E. J. 1947 Bioelectric Fields and Growth. Austin. The University of Texas Press. 1 Matthews, A. P. 1903 Electrical polarity in hydroids. Am. J. Physiol., 8: 294. Nelson, O. E., Jr., and H. S., Burr 1946 Growth correlates of electromotive forces in maize seeds. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., Wash., 32: 73–84. Citing Literature Volume113, Issue1February 1950Pages 201-210 ReferencesRelatedInformation

Biology has been always a descriptive science. The great variety and number of living systems have been enough to occupy the major time of investigators until the rise of the experimental method resulted in the examination, in greater detail, of individual systems. Even here, however, the descriptive method dominated the science. Processes and mechanisms have been described and, with the improvement of methods of chemical analyses, the majority of the entities comprising the complex organization of living matter have been unravelled. It is now known that the chemical entities, atoms, and molecules found in the non-living world, are also found in protoplasm. Moreover, the great majority of the chemical processes are the same in both living and non-living matter. No new laws have been found to operate in living material. It is abundantly clear that the crucial factor differentiating the living from the non-living lies not in the entities of which the systems are composed, but in the relationships which the entities bear to each other. In other words, it is the relationship of the entities which determines the difference between a living organism and inert matter. It is equally clear that the entities are related to each other in an extraordinarily complex manner; so complex, in fact, that the simplest living organism is vastly more complicated than any other system on the face of the globe. Needless to say, that makes the problem of the biologist extraordinarily difficult. The obvious intricacy of protoplasm makes exceedingly difficult the search for the forces which impose the necessary relationships. Nevertheless, there is one aspect of the operation of these forces which is obvious. Whether simple or multifarious, the forces operate in such a manner as to impose a configuration peculiar to the living organisms. They determine the design or pattern of organization of structure and its correlate, function, wherever life is found. The precision with which these forces control the development of pattern and regulate the functional consequences of that pattern is obvious to all observers. Moreover, these forces seem to operate with an extraordinary constancy

1. A technique is described for measuring field forces in the intact human being. 2. In seventy-five patients with cancer of the female genital tract, seventyfour showed the cervix to be consistently electronegative to the ventral abdominal wall, 98.7 per cent. 3. Three hundred fifty-three patients with nonmalignant pathology showed the cervix to be electropositive to the ventral abdominal wall in two hundred eighty-nine instances, or 81.9 per cent. 4. In two hudrred ninety patients showing the cervix to be electropositive to the ventral abdominal wall, two hundred eighty-nine, or 99.6 per cent were in nonmalignant conditions. 5. Sixty-four patients, or 18.1 per cent of those with nonmalignant conditions, showed an electronegativity of the cervix similar to that found in cancer. 6. It is suggested that an unknown number of this latter small group may represent patients with field defects who may, at some later date, develop cancer.

The factors which produce variation in the relatively steady state standing potentials in living systems have been much discussed but have received little experimental study. Two possible sources of variation must be considered. In -one, the changes, whether great or small, may be due to inherent forces within the living system itself. Some of these endogenous forces are well known; brain waves, heart waves, and the electrical correlates of nerve muscle preparations are all changes in standing potential which result from, or are correlated with, the particular biological actvity of thte system being studied. It is characteristic of most of these that they are of relatively short duration and, therefore, can be recorded by resistance capacity coupled amplifiers. In general, most of these records are made under conditions sufficiently standardized so as to preclude any great effect of external or environmental factors. It is, however, generally known that humidity and temperature have some influence on the nature and character of the findings. These exogenous factors are only two of a wide range of events which include such factors as light, barometric pressure, and very possibly as yet unknown radiations such as cosmic rays, as well as electrical characters of the atmosphere. To control the exogenous factors, either singly or in groups, is a highly complicated procedure. Conceivably it could be done, but it would require a large amount of experimental apparatus and much experimentation. The problem can be approached in another way. Given a living system from which continuous records of potential difference could be made, simultaneous records of temperature, humidity, barometer, sun, atmosphere, electricity, and cosmic rays should provide the basis for correlations. For this purpose a growing tree is an ideal living system. Moreover, the application of the electrodes to the tree can be carried out with a minimum of disturbance to the normal functioning of the tree, and a continuous report of the electrical characteristics of at least one segment of a tree over long periods of time can be secured.

In a recent preliminary note2 concerning electrical correlates of peripheral nerve injury, it was pointed out that the condition of peripheral nerves is reflected in the changing surface potential differences. The following discussion will briefly describe certain experiments which led to this observation and to the clinical application of the method in cases where there is any question of peripheral nerve function, injury, or regeneration. Material and methods All potentials were recorded by means of the Burr, Lane, Nims micro-voltmeter, according to the technique described' by them in 1936. Reversible, nonpolarizable Ag-AgCl electrodes were used. The recorded data are in millivolts of potential difference between a fixed "indifferent" or reference electrode and a moving electrode. In all animal experiments the fixed electrode was located high up on the thigh and the moving electrode was placed on surface areas of the lower leg which were supplied by the sciatic nerve. In all cases of ulnar injury in man, the reference electrode was placed on the ear lobe and the moving electrode on the surface of the most distal phalanx of the fifth finger. Polarities represented in the graphs are those of the moving electrode. A preliminary survey of the efficacy of the test in war injuries (for which funds were provided under a contract recommended by the Committee on Medical Research, between the Office of Scientific Research and Development and the Yale University School of Medicine) was made at the Oak Knoll Naval Hospital, Oakland, California. The authors are indebted to Commander W. C. Livingston and his staff, as well as to the personnel and patients of the hospital for their kind cooperation. The cases discussed here were examined at the U. S. Naval Hospital at St. Albans, N. Y. Our most sincere gratitude is extended to Admiral H. W. Smith (MC) USN, who made it possible for the work to be carried out; to Capt. and other members of the staff of the hospital, and to all those, personnel and patients, whose cooperation and assistance enabled us to complete the tests.