ing substances, Dr. Bose
constructed an "artificial retina" to study the characteristics of the
excitatory change produced by a stimulus on the retina and these
characteristics gave him a clue to the unexpected discovery of the
"binocular alteration of vision" in man--"each eye supplements its
fellow by turns, instead of acting as a continuously yoked pair, as
hitherto believed."[15] He next communicated to the Royal Society his
researches 'On the Continuity of Effect of Light and Electric Radiation
on Matter,' and 'On the Similarities between Mechanical and Radiation
Strains,' and 'On the Strain Theory of Photographic action,' which were
published in April 1901. Then, on the 10th May 1901, he delivered his
remarkable 'Friday Evening Discourse,' at the Royal Institution, on the
'Response of Inorganic Matter to Stimulus.'

OPPOSITION OF THE PHYSIOLOGISTS

Then, on the 5th June 1901, he gave an experimental demonstration,
before the Royal Society, on the subject of his researches 'On Electric
Response of Inorganic Substances' which had already been communicated to
that Society, on the 7th May 1901. He was strongly assailed by Sir John
Burden Sanderson, the leading physiologist, and some of his followers.
They objected to a physicist straying into the preserve especially
reserved for them. They dogmatically asserted _as physiologists_ that
the excitatory response of ordinary plants to mechanical stimulus was an
impossibility. But they failed to urge anything against the experiment
of the physicist. In consequence of this opposition, Dr. Bose's paper,
which was already in print, was not published but was placed in the
archives of the Royal Society. "And it happened that eight months after
the reading of his Paper, another communication found publication in the
Journal of a different Society which was practically the same as Dr.
Bose's but without any acknowledgment. The author of this communication
was a gentleman who had previously opposed him at the Royal Society. The
plagiarism was subsequently discovered and led to much unpleasantness.
It is not necessary to refer any more to this subject except as an
explanation of the fact that the determined hostility and
misrepresentation of one man succeeded for more than 10 years to bar all
avenues of publications for his discoveries."[16]

The opposition of the physiologists, however, did one good. It spurred
Dr. Bose on and made him stronger in his determination not to encom