THE THEORY OF ANAESTHESIA. 345 



Vernon 1 has investigated the influence of various anaesthetics 

 upon the activity of the indophenol oxidase of the vertebrate 

 kidney. Enzymes which accelerate the oxidative formation of 

 the blue dye, indophenol, from a mixture of a-naphthol and 

 para-diamino-benzene are widely distributed in organisms; and 

 Vernon's investigations on the distribution of this oxidase in 

 the tissues of vertebrates indicate that a relation exists between 

 the oxidase-content of a tissue and its general oxidative activity. 2 

 Various anaesthetics were found to decrease the oxidation and 

 eventually to destroy the oxidase. The concentrations required 

 to decrease activity by one half under otherwise constant condi- 

 tions showed a close parallelism with those required to haemolyze 

 red corpuscles. In both cases the order of relative action was 

 the same as for anaesthesia. The parallelism of lipoid-solubility 

 with narcotic action appeared closer than that of surface- 

 activity; and Vernon inclines to the belief that the narcotics 

 exert their action chiefly by dissolving in the lipoids of the plasma- 

 membrane and so altering the properties of this structure (pos- 

 sibly by interfering with the interaction of oxidase and per- 

 oxidase). 3 The oxidase-inhibiting concentrations are, however, 

 far higher than the narcotizing, and correspond rather with the 

 cytolytic concentrations, so that a direct connection seems 

 doubtful. The work of Battelli and Stern 4 on the influence of 

 anaesthetics on other tissue-oxidases (e. g., a liver-oxidase which 

 oxidizes succinic to malic acid) shows in general similar relations; 

 in this case the inhibiting action was found to run closely parallel 

 with surface-activity, more so, according to Battelli and Stern, 

 than with lipoid-solubility. It showed also a striking parallelism 

 with a precipitating action on the nucleo-proteins of the tissue. 

 As already stated, a similar precipitating action of anaesthetics 

 has been investigated by Moore and Roaf, who agree with 

 Battelli and Stern in regarding this action as an important factor 

 in anaesthesia; the authors also attribute the action of anaesthetics 

 not to their influence on lipoids alone, but rather to an alteration 



1 Loc. cit. 



2 Vernon. Journ. Physiol., 1911, Vol. 42, p. 402. 



3 Loc. cit., 1912. 



4 Battelli and Stern, loc. cit. 



