A translation of Maurice Philippson's "Principles of the Electrical Resistance of Living Tissue"

Abstract

The impedance of one cubic centimeter of living tissues of potato and guinea pig were measured from 500 Hz to 3 MHz. In general, the magnitude of the impedance was found to monotonically decrease with increasing frequency. This implies that the membrane of each cell in the tissue acts like a capacitor, which is in parallel with a membrane resistance. The membrane resistance and capacitance together are in series with a protoplasm resistance. Experimentally, it was observed that after the guinea pig died, the membrane resistance of its muscle decreased from 1.49 to 0.79 kilo-ohm while the protoplasm resistance remained around 0.11 kilo-ohm. By contrast, when the potato started to germinate, the protoplasm resistance decreased from 0.25 to 0.10 kilo-ohm, while its membrane resistance remained around 4 kilo-ohms.