THE PROCESSES OF DEPRESSION 263 



connection of the law established by Meyer and Overton with the 

 nature of narcosis. 



The depressing effect of the narcotic would then consist in 

 producing incapability of the lipoids transmitting oxygen to act 

 as carriers of the same, and it is, therefore, self-evident that the 

 effect of the narcotic would be the stronger the more readily it 

 found entrance into the lipoids. It is perhaps not without interest 

 that in similar manner Mansfeld 1 has attempted to establish a 

 connection between the facts which Meyer and Overton have 

 found and those ascertained by my coworkers and myself. He 

 expressed the view that the lipoids of the cells represent the 

 channels followed by the oxygen on its entrance, and that in con- 

 sequence of their accumulation in the lipoids, the narcotics bring 

 about asphyxiation by physically obstructing the transmission 

 of the oxygen from the outer medium through the surface layer 

 of the lipoid into the protoplasm. The divergence in our views 

 is not essential in their nature, and I attach the less importance 

 to them as we find ourselves here, as I must again emphasize, 

 on purely hypothetical ground. 



In consideration of these observations we may perhaps estab- 

 lish the following hypothesis of the effect of the oxydative sup- 

 pression of narcotics : The narcotics obstruct, either by absorption 

 or loose chemical combination the oxygen carriers of the cell and 

 render them incapable to activate the molecular oxygen. In con- 

 sequence, oxydation of the oxydable substances cannot take place 

 and disintegration occurs of an awoxydative form. The cell 

 asphyxiates. 



In conclusion I wish to warn against erroneous assumption 

 that all oxydative depressions by chemical substances are nar- 

 cosis and that the mechanism is the same. It is true that a num- 

 ber of chemical substances depress the processes of oxydation. 

 But the latter can be brought about in very varying ways. I 

 would like to mention the effect of oxydative depression of 

 aldehydes. To this Warburg 2 has added hydrocyanic acid, 



1 Mansfeld: "Narkose und Sauerstoff mangel." Pfliigers Arch. Bd. 129, 1909. 



2 Warburg: "Ueber Beeinflussung der Sauerstoffatmung. II Mitteilung: Eine 

 Beziehung zur Constitution." Zeitschrift f. physiol. Chemie Bd. 71, 1911. 



