  This paper considers the effect of electrostatics on the stability of a
charged membrane. We show that at low ionic strength and high surface charge
density, repulsion between charges on the membrane renders it unstable to the
formation of holes. A free straight edge is unstable to modulations with
wavelength longer than the Debye screening length. Hence at low ionic strength,
membranes will disintegrate into vesicles. We use these results to interpret
stable holes in red blood cell ghosts (Steck et. al., Science 168:255(1970)).
