338 RALPH S. LILLIE. 



and Meyerstein) ; catalytic oxidation of oxalic acid by animal 

 charcoal (Warburg). 1 Thus not only oxidations under the in- 

 fluence of heterogeneous or colloidal catalyzers may be checked 

 by surface-active substances, but also oxidations in homogeneous 

 solution. This would indicate that surface-activity is not the 

 only factor involved. On the basis of this and other facts 

 Traube puts forward the hypothesis that narcotics are essentially 

 negative catalyzers, especially in relation to oxidative processes. 2 

 The question of how this anti-oxidative effect is produced within 

 the living cell is the essential one. Traube and others have 

 suggested that the direct action of surface-active and narcotic 

 substances on colloids may be a chief factor. Moore and Roaf 3 

 have investigated the precipitation of serum by such substances, 

 an effect which shows a general increase with surface-activity. 

 These authors, however, refer the effect to the formation of loose 

 chemical combinations between the narcotic and the proteins; 

 the quantity of chloroform and other anaesthetics dissolved by 

 serum is several times greater than by water; they regard the 

 excess as held by chemical union, and they attribute narcotic 

 action to such loose protein-anaesthetic compounds which limit 

 the chemical activities of the protoplasm, including presumably 

 the oxidations. Warburg and Wiesel also find that narcotic 

 substances have a precipitating action on the press-juice of yeast, 

 and that the anti-fermentative action runs parallel with the 

 precipitating action; and they recall the older view of Claude 

 Bernard, according to which a semi-coagulation of the cell- 

 colloids forms the basis of narcosis. 4 Battelli and Stern 5 find 

 that the nucleo-proteins of cell-extracts are also precipitated by 

 lipoid-solvent anaesthetics, and that the precipitating action runs 

 parallel with the influence in checking the activity of cell- 



1 Warburg, Pfliiger's Archiv, 1914, Vol. 155, p. 547. 



2 Winterstein ("Heat-paralysis and Narcosis," Zeitschr. f. allg. Physiol., 1905, 

 Vol. 5, p. 323) had earlier compared narcotics to the anticatalyzers or " Paralysa- 

 toren" of Bredig. 



3 Moore and Roaf, Proc. Roy. Soc., 1904, Vol. 73, p. 382; 1906, Vol. 77-B, p. 86. 



4 Cf. Warburg and Wiesel, loc. cit.; also Claude Bernard, "Lecons sur les anes- 

 thesiques et sur 1'asphyxie," Paris, 1875, p. 154. Anaesthetics, however, do not 

 affect the osmotic pressure of protein solutions, according to Meyerhof (see footnote 

 I, p. 346). 



6 Loc. oil. 



