…in hypnotized children, real colors and suggested colors are blended to form the
complimentary color (189)
W. Horsley Gantt
SECTION A. Illustrations from Biology
Because of the semantic importance of the structural non-elementalistic principle, and the
weighty, yet in the beginning, odd consequences will follow the consistent application of this
principle in practice, we will give a short account of some other experimental structural facts
taken from widely separated fields.
A worm, a marine planarian, called a Thysanozoon (Brochii), is common in the Bay of Naples. If
we put a normal Thysanozon on its back, it soon will right itself. When the brain of the worm has
been removed, under similar conditions of the experiment, the worm will right itself, but more
slowly. In this case, we see a general tendency of the organism-as-a-whole; the nervous system
only facilitated a quicker action. If we cut the worm partly in two, so that the longitudinal nerves
are severed, but a thin piece of tissue keeps the two parts together, the two parts move in a
coordinated way, as if not cut. The organism still works as a whole, although the conditions
seem not favorable. (1)
If we cut a fresh water planarian (Planaria Torva) in two, transversely, the posterior part, which
has no brain, moves about as well as the anterior part, which has the brain. If we try to find the
effect of light on the part devoid of brain and eyes, we see that the effect of light is not changed,
and that the posterior part crawls away from light into dark corners as a normal animal would,
except that the action takes place at a slower rate. In normal animals, the reaction usually begins
in about one minute after the exposure; in the brainless part, it takes nearly five minutes of
exposure. (2).
How chemical conditions affect activities of the organism-as-a-whole can be well illustrated by
the following examples. In a jellyfish, we can increase or decrease the locomotor activities by
simply changing the chemical constitution of the water. If we increase the number of Na ions in
the seawater, the rhythmical contractions increase and the animal becomes restless. If we
increase the number of Ca ions, the contractions decrease. In a similar way, we can change the
orientation toward light in a number of marine animals by changing the constitution of the
medium. The larvae of Polygordius, which usually go away from light into dark corners, can be
compelled to go toward light by two methods: either by lowering the temperature of the sea
water, or by increasing the concentration of salts in the sea water. This behavior can be
reversed by raising the temperature or lowering the concentration of the salts. (3)
An extremely instructive group of experiments has been performed in artificial fertilization of the
eggs of a large number of marine animals, such as star fish, mollusks, and others.
Under usual conditions, these eggs cannot develop unless a spermatozooan enters the egg,
which results in a thickening of the membrane called the fertilization membrane. Experiments
show that such a transformation can be produced artificially in an unfertilized egg, with resulting
‘fertilization’, by several artificial means, as, for instance, by the treatment of the eggs with
special chemicals, and, in some instances, by merely puncturing the egg with a needle. The late
Jacques Loeb succeeded in producing in this way parthenogenetic frogs, which live a normal
life. (4)
Under normal conditions, the eggs of different sea animals can be fertilized only by their proper
sperm. But, if we raise the alkalinity of the sea water slightly, we find that the eggs can be
fertilized by different sperms, often of widely separated kinds of animals. (5) If we put
unfertilized eggs of a sea urchin into sea water, which contains a trace of saponin, we find that
the eggs acquire the characteristic ‘membrane fertilization’. If the eggs are taken out, washed
carefully and put back into sea water, they develop into larvae. (6) The change in the chemical
constitution of sea water will also often produce twins from one egg. Change in temperature
may change the color of butterflies. (7)
A very large class of such organism-as-a-whole reactions is given in the works of Professor C.
M. Child on Regeneration. I suggest these works, not only because they’re particularly
interesting, even to the layman, but mainly because Professor Child has formulated a biological
system, the importance of which is becoming paramount, and is beginning to be applied even in
Psychiatry by Dr. William A. White and others.
We find the characteristic of profiting by past experiences and acquiring negative reactions very
low in the scale of life. Thus, even infusoria, which ingest a grain of carmine, soon learn to
refuse it. (8)
Most interesting experiments are performed on worms by Yerkes in 1912 and verified repeatedly.
Yerkes built a T-shaped maze. In one arm, (C), he placed a piece of sandpaper (S) beyond which
there was an electrical device (E) which could give an electrical shock. The animal used for
experimenting was an earthworm. The worm was admitted through the entrance (A). If he
selected his way through (B), he got out without disagreeable consequences. If he selected (c),
he received, first, a fair warning through the sand paper (S), and, if this was not enough, he
received an electrical shock at (E). After a number of experiences, the worm learned his lesson
and avoided the path (C). After this habit was acquired, the five anterior segments of the worm
were cut off. The beheaded worm retained the habit, although it reacted more slowly. During the
following two months, the worm grew a new brain and the habit disappeared. When trained
again, he partially reacquired the above habit.
Further experiments establish that normal worms acquire the avoiding habit in approximately
200 trials; and when the electrical device was put in the other arm, the worm learned how to
reverse his habit in about 65 trials. Once the habit was acquired, the removal of the brain did not
alter it. Worms with removed brains were also able to acquire a similar habit. Since the brain of
an earthworm is a very small part of his whole nervous system, it has only a small dominance,
and the neuron-muscular habits are acquired by the whole system and not simply by the brain.
But when a new brain began to operate, its dominance was seemingly sufficient to eliminate the
habit. (9)
Experiments of McCracken with silkworm moths have shown that a beheaded moth can live as
long as a normal one. It can be mated, and will lay the normal number of fertile eggs, arranged in
the usual way. But it will not lay eggs spontaneously, and cannot select the proper kind of
leaves on which to deposit them. If the head and thorax were cut off, the females were unable to
mate, and their life was shortened to about 5 days. If mated before the operation, they would still
lay eggs when stimulated.
In these more complicated cases, the brain is necessary for the more complicated behavior, as,
for instance, the selection of a mulberry leaf. (10). Although the organism works as a whole, the
differentiation and relative importance (domination) of different organs becomes more
accentuated, the higher we go in the scale of life.
Section B: Illustrations from Nutrition Experiments
We find striking illustrations of the non-elemental principle in the study of vitamins. A few years
ago it was discovered that certain widely spread and pernicious diseases were due to
deficiencies of some factors in diet. These factors, which normally are present in very minute
amounts, were called vitamins by the Polish biologist Funk. The most important vitamin
deficiency diseases are called Ricketts, Scurvy, Beri-beri, and Pellagra. In all these cases, it is
important to notice that the lack of a minute amount of some factor may have the most varied,
pronounced, and seemingly unrelated consequences. The symptoms can now be produced
deliberately upon experimental animals by diets free from the particular vitamins, and can also
be cured at will by feeding them with the proper vitamins. (11)
Ricketts appears essentially as a disease of infancy or childhood. In mild cases, the disease
may only be discovered after the death of the adult. In these cases, the lesions have not become
pronounced enough during life to attract attention.
The diagnosis usually depends on manifestations in the bones, but Ricketts affects the whole
organism and not merely the skeleton. The children are nervous and irritable, but apathetic.
They sleep poorly and perspire excessively. The muscles become wasted and weak. Often, a
secondary anemia occurs. The children sit, stand, and walk later than usual; the teeth appear
later in life and decay sooner. The bones usually become much affected. Areas of softening
appear in the long bones, which become bent. In more severe cases, the bones may even
become fractured and the head of the bone may separate from the shaft. The general resistance
of the children to other diseases is lowered and mortality increases.
Cod liver oil or sunshine usually effects a cure. We should notice the little word ‘or’, for quite
different causes produce similar effects - an example illustrating that in life ‘cause’ and ‘effect’
do not correspond in a one to one relation, but in a many to one relation.
Experiments have shown that not less than 3 primary dietary factors are concerned with the
development of skeletal tissue. These are Phosphorous, Calcium and at least one organic
compound, which is known as Antirachitic vitamin. The work of Professor E. V. McCollum and
his co-workers seems to show an interesting point; namely, that the ratio between the
concentrations of Calcium and of Phosphorous in the food may be more important than the
absolute amounts of these substances.
Scurvy develops gradually. The patient loses weight, appears anemic, pale, weak, and short of
breath. The gums become swollen, bleed easily, and often develop ulcers. The teeth loosen and
fall out. Hemorrhages between the mucous membranes and the skin often occur. Blue black
spots in the skin are very easily produced, or even occur spontaneously. The ankles become
swollen, and in severe cases, the skin becomes hard. Nervous symptoms of a varied character
appear, some of which are due to the rupture of blood vessels. In later stages of the disease,
delirium and convulsions may occur. Autopsy reveal significant data; namely, hemorrhages and
fragility of the bones. Scurvy appears also as a deficiency disease, produced mainly by the lack
in food of the so-called anti-scorbutic vitamin.
Beri-beri labels a form of inflammation of the peripheral nerves, the nerves of motion and
sensation being equally affected. In the beginning of the disease, the patient feels fatigue,
depression, and stiffness of the legs. We distinguish two forms, the wet and the dry. In the dry
form, wasting anesthesia and paralysis are the chief manifestations. The most marked
manifestation in the wet form is the accumulation of serum in the cellular tissues affecting the
trunks, limbs and extremities. Usually in both forms there appear tenderness of the calf muscles
and a tingling or burning in the feet, legs and arms. The mortality is high.
Pellagra involves the nervous system, the digestive tract, and skin. Normally, one of the first
symptoms to appear is soreness and inflammation of the mouth. Symmetrical redness of the
skin occurs on parts of the body. The nervous system becomes more pronounced as the
disease advances. The spinal chord is particularly involved, but the central nervous system is
also often affected.
Speaking about vitamins and how their absence affects the organism-as-a-whole, we should
mention that sterility in females may be connected with lack of vitamins. Astonishing
experiments by Professor McCollum showed that such diverse phenomena as loss of weight,
premature old age, high infant mortality, are largely due to diet, and that even such fundamental
instincts as the motherly instinct are also affected. The normally nourished rat very seldom
destroys its young, and as a rule rats are good mothers. If we put such a mother rat on an
abundant diet that is deficient in some vitamins, the mother reacts quite differently toward her
young and destroys them soon after birth. This characteristic has been controlled
experimentally and reversed at will by proper diets. Nervousness and irritability in rats can also
be controlled experimentally by means of the vitamins they receive, or lack in food.
Section C: Illustrations from Mental and Nervous Diseases
Simple and striking examples of what the non-elemental principle means can also be given from
Psychiatry.
White quotes the report of Prince, that a patient was subject to severe attacks of hay fever when
exposed to roses. On one occasion, a bunch of roses was unexpectedly produced from behind
a screen. The patient started a severe attack with all the usual symptoms, lachrymation,
congestion of the mucosa, although the roses were made of paper. This interesting case shows
clearly how mental factors (the belief that the roses were genuine) produces a series of reaction
involving sensory, motor, vasomotor disturbances, and secretory disturbances of a definitely
physical character. (12)
Migraine labels a disturbance in the tension of blood vessels (vasometer), which is due to a great
variety of possible stimuli acting on the vegetative nervous system. In some instances, the
stimuli may be purely physical, as severe blows, falls, fast movements, sudden alteration in
temperature, of pressure; or they may be chemical, and due to nicotine, alcohol, morphine, or to
some endocrinal disturbances (adrenals, thyroid) toxins. They may be of a purely somatic reflex
character, due to fatigue or tumor formations. They may also be of a semantic character, due to
anger, fear, disappointment, worry and other semantic states, which may act by disturbing the
metabolism.
Migraine appears usually as a periodical abnormal state, in which the patient suffers from an
oppressive pain in the head which gradually passes from heaviness and dullness to splitting
intensity. Often characteristic visual signs also appear. The patient sees dark spots in the visual
field, flying specks, and may become even partially blind. Chilliness, depression, sensory
disturbances, particularly in the stomach, with vomiting, are often present. An attack may last a
few hours or several days. (13).
Cretinism labels a physical and mental disturbance due mainly to the loss or dimunition of the
function of the Thyroid gland. The patient, child, falls behind in his physical development, which
often results in dwarfism, except for the skull, which grows larger in proportion t the rest of the
body. The bone defects give rise to widely separated eyes, pug nose. The bony tissue becomes
unusually hard and there is also a marked dental deficiency. The neck is usually thick and short,
the abdomen puffy, the navel sunken, the hairline begins low on the forehead, the nose is
sunken, the eyelids swollen, the face puffy, the tongue protruding. The liver is usually enlarged,
respiration is slow, and changes in the blood can be detected. The nervous system is affected:
we also find defects in sensory and motor nerve structure. On the mental level, we find different
degrees of stupidity, mental weakness (morons), imbecility, and even idiocy. Smell, eyesight,
and hearing are often poor, speech disturbed, so that we often find the patients deaf and dumb.
The patients have an unsteady gait, with wobbling of the head. Over activity of the Thyroid
gland results in the well-known goiter.
Hyperpituitarism results in acromegaly, characterized by the gradual enlargement of bones of
the nose, jaw, hands and feet. Gigantism, often connected with profound disturbances.
Hypopituitarism, or deficiency of the pituitary hormones, gives rise to a group of diseases
characterized by progressive accumulation of fat, and is connected with other abnormalities and
disturbances.
From the field of Psychoneurosis, I shall mention only Hysteria. It is very interesting to note that
the many and various physical and somatic symptoms are of a purely semantic origin. The
symptoms of hysteria are many and very complex, but they group themselves mainly in
disturbances of motion and ‘sensation’. We find every kind of paralysis and anesthesia.
Paralysis of the limbs is frequent; anesthesia may be distributed in many ways, involving the
superficies or the various sense organs. It is interesting to note that the disturbance of these
symptoms does not follow the anatomical areas of nerve distribution, but shows a symbolic
(psycho-logical) grouping. The disturbances of motility are usually in the form of paralysis.
Tremors, muscular debility, fatigueability, involuntary muscular twitching, tics, and spasms, are
often hysterical in origin. Speech is often involved; sometime patients can only whisper,
although their vocal organs are healthy. Stuttering is often hysterical, and analysis shows that
the words which give difficulties usually have special semantic significance to the patient.
Respiratory disturbances of an asthmatic character and disturbances of the gastrointestinal
tract, are also often hysterical.
It should be emphasized that since non-elementalism has a physico-chemical structural base in
colloidal behavior, all life and all organisms give ample material for illustration. We have given
here only a very few examples, selected mainly because of their simple and spectacular
empirical character, but not generally too well known. Empirical data show clearly that the most
diversified factors, acting as partial stimuli, ultimately affect or result in the response of the
whole.
The handling of such empirical, structural, fundamental problems involves serious structural,
linguistic and semantic difficulties which have to be solved entirely by adjusting the structure of
the language used, but such adjustment requires a full understanding of the structural issues at
hand and a fundamental structural departure from methods and means. These structural issues
and means of departure from methods are explained in the following chapters.
To sum up: the non-elementary principle formulates a structural character inherently found in
the structure of the world, ourselves, and our nervous system on all levels; the knowledge and
application of which is unconditionally necessary for adjustment on all levels, and, therefore, in
humans, for sanity.
As knowledge, understanding, and such functions are solely relational, and therefore, structural,
the unconditional and inherent condition for adjustment on all human levels depends on
building languages of similar structure to the experimental facts. Once this is accomplished, all
the former desirable semantic consequences follow automatically.
For simplicity, we have considered only examples of the organism-as-a-whole, but, as a matter of
fact, such a detached consideration cannot be considered entirely satisfactory, as structurally,
every organism depends on its environment; and, therefore, in building our languages, we
ought to coin terms which also involve the latter by implication. Fortunately, this condition does
not involve us in serious difficulties, when once identity is eliminated and the fundamental
problems of structure are grasped. Indeed, the terms which we’ve already used, or which will be
used as we proceed, are all of such a non-elementary structure as to involve the environment by
implication.
In dealing with Smith, the difficulties are particularly serious because his nervous system is the
most complex known. It is stratified four dimensionally (in space-time), and the dominance of
some centres introduces prodigious and manifold interrelations non existent in nervous
systems of similar structure; and we still have to learn how to handle the former. Fortunately,
mathematical methods and Psychiatry explain a good deal about this question, and give us the
desired means to apply what we have learned.
Obviously, to know something is quite different from the habitual application of what we have
learned. This semantic difference is particularly acute in the case of language, as it involves
structural implications which work unconsciously. It is not enough to understand and know the
content of the present work; one must train oneself in the use of the new terms. Then only can
he expect the maximum semantic results.