n6 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



vacuum they continue to give off carbonic acid. A little later the 

 same phenomenon was observed by Pfeffer in plants. Pflueger 

 gave to this process the term " intra-molecular respiration." 

 "So firmly had the conception of combustion been impressed 

 upon physiologists that when this anaerobic respiration came to 

 be explained, it was supposed that certain molecules of organic 

 matter within the cell gave up their oxygen to others that 

 they might thus be burned in the body furnace to yield 

 energy." * 



The name, however, was but a mask for mystery. Thanks 

 to the work of the physiological botanists and especially to 

 E. Godlewski, to W. Palladin and their respective schools, to 

 Kostytschew, Stoklasa, Maze and others, 2 the matter has now 

 been cleared up. In the absence of oxygen, the respiration of 

 plants we may surmise, as that of animals also, for the most 

 part is a process strictly comparable with alcoholic fermenta- 

 tion. In order to exclude the intervention of any mystic " vital 

 agencies" Palladin 3 conducted his experiments upon plants 

 killed by freezing. But latterly Kostytschew 4 has been able 

 to show a case of anaerobic respiration in the living plant in 

 which there is no simultaneous production of alcohol. If 

 Agaricus campestris be cultivated under aseptic and anaerobic 

 conditions, no alcohol is formed ; moreover an increased supply 

 of sugar brought no increase in the production of carbon 

 dioxide. 5 



An endeavour to identify respiration as essentially a process 

 of hydroxylation has been made by A. P. Matthews and by 

 Barnes. In his paper on " The Nature of Protoplasmic Respira- 

 tion and Growth," 6 Matthews notes, among others, the following 

 facts which must be explained by any adequate theory : 



i. " Even though surrounded by oxygen all protoplasm 

 maintains itself while alive in a reduced state and acts as an 

 intense reducing agent. Its reducing powers are comparable 

 with those of nascent hydrogen. 



1 Barnes, "Theory of Respiration," Bot. Gas. 81, 39, 1905. 

 * Cf. Euler, Pflanzenchemie, p. 171 ff. 



3 Bot. Ber. v. 23, 24; Zeit. f. physiol. Chan. 407, 47, 1906 ; Biochem. Zeit. 

 151,18, 1909. 



4 Zeit.f. physiol. Chem. 214, 48, 1906. 



5 These observations have been confirmed by Stoklasa, among others, ibid. 

 303, 49, 1907. 



6 Biol. Bull. Woods Holl, 331, 8, 1905. 



