The Embryo at the Wound 61
ing and the muscle fiber. This chemical was later identified as acetyl-
choline, and Loewi was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1936 for this
discovery. His work resulted in the collapse of the last vestige of elec-
trical vitalism. Thereafter, every function of the nervous system had to
be explained on the basis of the Bernstein hypothesis and chemical trans-
mission across the synapse.
It was with great trepidation, therefore, that I put any credence in
Sinyukhin's report that the strength of the injury current affected re-
generation in his plants. Yet his report was detailed and carefully writ-
ten. Something about his work gave me a gut feeling that it was valid.
Maybe it was because the tomato plants he used were "Best of All"
American Beauties. At this point I wasn't aware of Matteucci's forgotten
work, but something clicked in my mind now as I studied Rose's and
Polezhaev's experiments. In both, definitely in Pole2haev's and probably
in Rose's, regeneration had been stimulated by an increase in the injury.
Then another Russian supplied a timely lead. In a government trans-
lation I found a 1958 paper by A. V. Zhirmunskii of the Institute of
Cytology in Leningrad, who studied the current of injury in the hind leg
muscle of the bullfrog. This muscle is nice and long, easy to work with,
and contains branches from several different nerves. He made a standard
injury in each muscle, measured the current of injury, then cut the
nerves branch by branch, noting the effect on the current. It decreased
with each succeeding nerve cut. The current of injury was proportional
to the amount of nerve.
Then I went to the library and delved back into the history of neu-
rophysiology and found Matteucci's superb series of observations. Not
only had he proven that the current of injury was real, he'd shown that
it varied in proportion to the severity of the wound.
Now I had enough pieces to start on the puzzle. I summarized the
observations in a little matrix:
Extent of injury is proportional to regeneration
Amount of nerve is proportional to regeneration
Extent of injury is proportional to current of injury
Amount of nerve is proportional to current of injury
Ergo: current of injury is proportional to regeneration
I was pretty sure now chat, contemporary "knowledge" to the contrary,
the current of injury was no side effect and was the first place to look for
clues to the growth control and dedifferentiation-stimulating factors. I
planned my first experiment.