LIFE WITHOUT OXYGEN 115 



" Although the putrefactive processes have been set forth in 

 complete parallel to the phenomena of life, it should not be 

 understood thereby that the two are identical, only that any 

 difference is as yet unknown " {I.e. p. 128). 



Hoppe-Seyler based his view of the fermentative nature of 

 respiration on the following facts : 



1. In the animal organism, reduced substances such as 

 urobilin, succinic acid, hippuric acid and so forth result from 

 the introduction of quinolinic acid and the like and appear 

 in the urine in company with unquestionable products of 

 oxidation. 



2. Many easily oxidisable substances may pass through the 

 organism unoxidised. 



3. Between the production of carbon dioxide and the con- 

 sumption of oxygen there is no constant relation. 



4. Although ozone is not and cannot be demonstrated in 

 the organism, nevertheless a complete destruction of com- 

 plicated organic compounds to carbon dioxide and water takes 

 place, whilst we are able to bring about these same oxidations 

 outside the body only very slowly and incompletely even with 

 the aid of the strongest oxidising materials {I.e. p. 128). 



Similar ideas were independently advanced and the anaerobic 

 nature of the fundamental chemical changes in the cell still 

 more definitely insisted upon by A. Gautier. His ideas are 

 summed up in his admirable little Chimie de la Cellule Vivante 

 (2nd edition, Paris, 1898). After describing his experiments, he 

 concludes : 



" Anaerobic life which up till then had been thought to be 

 characteristic only of certain primitive micro-organisms, in 

 particular of the schizomycetes, is the essential and fundamental 

 mode in which most protoplasm functions. This view is founded 

 on three orders of proof. First that the animal organism pro- 

 duces a number of reduced substances, among others the 

 ptomaines and leucomaines, that I had just discovered ; second, 

 that in the humours of the economy are found the identical 

 substances that I had shown are formed in the course of 

 bacterial decomposition of the albumens, lactic acid, different 

 fatty acids, amidatid compounds, phenols, carbonic acid and 

 ammonia ; third, that the quantity of oxygen found in the totality 

 of our excretions exceeds by about one-fifth the quantity of 

 oxygen taken from the inspired air " (p. 99). 



Meanwhile, in 1875, Pflueger had repeated Spallanzani's ex- 

 periments on frogs and confirmed the fact that when put into a 



