The Relations Between Yolk and White in the Hen’s Egg

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Abstract
1. The vitelline membrane of the hen's egg, when isolated and placed between two salt solutions of different strengths, opposes no resistance to the dilution of the stronger and the concentration of the weaker. 2. Yolk and white, when separated by a thin collodion membrane, rapidly attain osmotic equilibrium. 3. Yolk and white, when separated by the vitelline membrane itself in the dialysis apparatus, equilibrate much more slowly, though not as slowly as in the intact egg. 4. It follows that neither the vitelline membrane, nor the yolk, nor the white, alone, is responsible for the maintenance of the steady state which exists in the intact egg. The phenomenon arises out of some collaboration of the three. It may be due (a) to the performance of thermodynamic work at the membrane, the glycolytic mechanism of the yolk providing the energy and the membrane utilising it, or (b) to the possession of osmotic properties by the vitelline membrane which are instantly lost when it is removed from the egg and brought into contact with salt solutions, or (c) to some feature of the physical structure of the yolk and white which retards the attainment of equilibrium, and which is not wholly destroyed by artificial mixing. 5. Experimental evidence is adduced in this paper which makes the second of these possibilities unlikely. Grave objections to the first have already been raised in the preceding papers of this series. But, on the other hand, there is as yet no positive evidence in favour of the third.

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