Bharatiya Pragna - Dr. Th Chowdary

During 1897-1900, Bose turned his interest to
comparative physiology, plant physiology in particular.
The main focus of his investigations was to
establish that all the characteristics of response
exhibited by animal tissues are equally exhibited by
plant tissues. In 1901, Bose submitted to the Royal
Society a preliminary note on the Electric Response
of Inorganic Substances, in which he showed how
he had obtained strong electric response from
plants to mechanical stimuli. However, the paper
was not published due to the opposition of Sir John
Burdon Sanderson, the leading electro-physiologist
of the time. In 1904, Bose submitted a series of
papers, once again to the Royal Society, showing
the similarities of both the electric and mechanical
responses of plants and animals. But these papers
too met the same fate.
His interest in physiology gave an impetus to his
inventive genius. For obtaining the records of
mechanical response of plant tissues, he first introduced
the optical lever in plant physiology to
magnify and photographically record the minute
movements of plants. He perfected the resonant
recorder that enabled him to determine with remarkable
accuracy, within a thousandth part of a
second, the latent period of response of the touchme-not
plant, Mimosapudica. He also devised
the oscillating recorder for making minute lateral
leaflets of the telegraphic plant (Desmodium
gyrans) automatically record their pulsating movements.
He even took up the problem of recording
micrographic growth movements of plants by devising
the crescograph. With this instrument, he
obtained a magnification of 10,000 times, and was
able to record automatically the elongation growth
of plant tissues and their modifications through
various external stimuli. Later, he perfected his
19
150th Birth Year
magnetic crescograph Tribute
obtaining a magnification from one to ten million
times. A demonstration of the crescograph at the
University College of London on April 23, 1920 led
several leading scientists to state in The Times: We
are satisfied that the growth of plant tissues is
correctly recorded by this instrument, and at a
magnification from one million to ten million
times.
The 1900s marked a spell of renewed activity.
He attended international conferences and wrote
books and research papers. In 1903, he was conferred
Companionship of the British Empire
(C.B.E.) by the British government. In 1912, he
received the Companionship of the Star of India
(C.S.I.). The University of Calcutta conferred on
him an honorary D.Sc. The Royal Society which
had been publishing his papers on physical research
since 1894, but had raised serious objections to
his physiological research, honoured him in 1920
by electing him a Fellow. In 1933 and 1935,
Banaras Hindu University and Dhaka University,
respectively, awarded him honorary D.Sc. He
formally retired from Presidency College in 1915,
but was appointed Professor Emeritus for the next
five years.
Bose was not interested in making money. He
could have made millions by simply patenting his
inventions but more important for him was to spread
knowledge. Towards this end, he had nurtured a
lifelong dream of establishing an institute of excellence.
Conceived at least twenty years earlier,
the Bose Institute was inaugurated in Calcutta on
November 30,1917. This is not a laboratory, he
had said, about his Institute, but a temple.
Bose died on November 23, 1937, just a
week short of his eightieth birthday.
November & December 2008 Bharatiya Pragna