Bose’s new discovery

IF the previous discoveries of Dr JC Bose give him a recognised, in fact, a distinguished place among the great scientists of the world, his latest discovery, of which an account was given in a public lecture delivered by him a few days ago at Darjeeling, bids fair to revolutionise one very important department of scientific knowledge. When 25 years ago the great savant demonstrated before the Royal Society and other scientific bodies in Europe the sensitiveness of plants and produced apparatuses made in India under his direction by means of which the rate of growth of a plant in the course of time as short as a second could be recorded, and which had enabled him to discover numerous stimulating agents by which plant growth could be enormously increased, the world of science did not know what to make of the new discovery, so opposed it was to their accepted ideas and theories. One of the most celebrated physicists among his audience, after testing the apparatus, explained: “My eyes see it but my heart still refuses to believe.” The remark was not only a compliment to the discoverer, but was a conclusive proof of the greatness of the discovery. In truth, as Dr Bose reminded his audience, before his appearance on the scene, the accepted view among scientists was that unlike the restless animal with its reflex movements and pulsating organs, the plant was a passive and irresponsive recipient of stimuli, that the plant had nothing corresponding to the nervous system of the animal in its composition, that, in fact, the two streams of life that flowed in the two classes of living beings had nothing in common.