MARCEL NENCKI, 1847— 1901 517 



the tissues of oxygen, are generally strongly toxic, whereas 

 bodies which do not undergo oxidation, such as benzoic acid, 

 are comparatively harmless. 



Another important investigation of Nencki concerns the fate 

 of the various esters in the alimentary tract. He showed that 

 the pancreatic juice was capable of hydrolysing various aromatic 

 esters, amongst others phenyl salicylate. This body in the small 

 intestine undergoes scission into phenol and salicylic acid, 

 two powerful antiseptics which become available only in the 

 intestine. Through this discovery practical pharmacy was 

 enriched by the addition of an important drug, phenyl salicylate, 

 which has found a large application under its commercial name 

 of salol. 



When we summarise these researches on the fate of various 

 bodies after ingestion, we find that pharmacology is indebted 

 to Nencki for various important discoveries, and he must be 

 ranked along with Schmiedeberg, Baumann, Jaffe, and others 

 amongst those pioneers who applied accurate chemical work to 

 pharmacological study. 



II. Researches on Putrefaction, etc 



Nencki's work on the chemical action of micro-organisms 

 must rank as his most important, not only on account of the 

 biological facts discovered, but on account of the influence they 

 have exerted on the general development of protein chemistry. 

 Not only did Nencki investigate the conditions under which 

 micro-organisms live and multiply; he isolated the degradation 

 products of the various media on which they grow, and thereby 

 determined their action both on proteins and carbohydrates ; 

 he investigated the influence of oxygen on this action, and 

 improved the technique of the study of anaerobiosis, and 

 finally he attempted to imitate their chemical action by purely 

 chemical methods. 



It is of interest to study the evolution of his work on this 

 subject. The first stimulus was given by the publication of the 

 researches of Schunck and Jaffe. The former had already shown 

 that indican, which is contained in normal urine, yields on 

 hydrolysis with acids, indigo blue. The latter showed that 

 the injection of indol, which had been recently discovered by 

 Baeyer, caused a considerable increase in the amount of indican 



