Rejection Thresholds of the Blowfly for a Series of Aliphatic Alcohols

Series of concentrations of 15 aliphatic alcohols were presented in 0.1 M sucrose to the tarsi of antennectomized-labellectomized blowflies (Phormia regina Meigen). With the pri-n-alcohols the mean concentrations at rejection formed a Traube series. When the rejection thresholds for all the alcohols tested were compared with their boiling points, vapor pressures, molecular surface areas) molecular moments, water-cottonseed oil distribution coefficients, standard free energies, and activity coefficients, a very high degree of correlation was found in each case. It is concluded that the limiting process which was measured is concerned with the receptor cells rather than with some other element in the complex response. Stimulative power was evidently not dependent on osmotic pressure nor on rate of molecular diffusion in solution, and the correlation with vapor pressure was inverse. It is judged that surface energy relationships are concerned in stimulation, but the exact mechanism cannot be defined until more is known about the structure of the sensory surface and about the process of excitation. The physiological activity of the alcohols is related more closely to the ease with which they gain access to the cell than to their chemical interaction with cellular constituents.