332 JOURNAL OF THE WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES VOL. 11, NO. 14 



phase or forms a blanketing adsorption layer about enzyme molecules, 

 or does both, the effect must be to hasten certain normal processes 

 and retard others. It is a well-established fact that many narcotics 

 retard extra cor pore many enzyme reactions, especially oxidations. 

 It is also well established that in narcotized cells the oxidation metab- 

 olism, that is, respiration, is dampened. That the presence of 

 narcotics also tends to hasten some protoplasmic processes is evident 

 from the effect of such substances on the rate of autolysis, that is, the 

 self-digestion of cells. Even small quantities of such substances as 

 chloroform or toluol very rapidly hasten the onset of the autolysis of 

 cells in vitro. ^^ Apparently they hasten it because through lipoid 

 solubility, surface tension effect, or adsorption, they disturb the balance 

 of the protoplasmic phases with a resulting destruction of the coordi- 

 nating mechanisms of protoplasm. ^^ The intracellular enzymes then 

 run riot and rapid autolysis results. Perhaps physical phenomena, 

 similar in kind if not in degree, are involved in narcosis. Certainly in 

 chloroform narcosis katabolism is increased. It is conceivable that in 

 the manner above suggested a substance may exercise a profound 

 effect upon a cell without necessarily entering into a chemical union 

 with some constituent of the cell. That such a chemical union must of 

 necessity precede the attack of a poison upon a cell was formerly very 

 generally assumed. 



In discussing phenomena of this character we must beware lest we 

 generalize too widely. No one hypothesis is applicable to all cases. 

 Thus there are cases in which it is perfectly well known that substances 

 accumulate in cells because they combine chemically with some 

 constituent of the cell. The alkaloids furnish an example. Tannic 

 acid precipitates many alkaloids. Some algae contain tannic acid and 

 when they are brought into solutions of the free alkaloids, the base, 



*2 V. Schroeder long ago showed that the autolysis of yeast went on more rapidly in the 

 presence of a little ether than without. Evidently ether does to yeast cells exactly what it 

 does to red blood corpuscles; it lakes them, i.e., it dissolves the lipoids of the cell-membranes 

 making the latter permeable to intra-cellular substances, among them the enzymes. It 

 seems that a process similar to hemolysis, called cytolysis, may occur in any cell. Probably 

 this phenomenon underlies such pathological conditions as acute yellow atrophy of the liver 

 which is characterized by an ante-mortem autolysis of the liver and perhaps other organs. 

 It is quite conceivable that a toxic substance absorbed from the gut may lake or cytolize 

 the liver cells destroying the coordination between their own ferments and setting these 

 ferments free to work their own cells' destruction. It is significant that yellow phosphorus, 

 chloroform and chloral hydrate, all lipoid-soluble substances, are capable, when taken by the 

 mouth, of producing a pathological condition bearing considerable resemblance to acute 

 yellow atrophy of the liver. 



33 C. L. Alsbbrg. Mechanisms of cell activity. Op. cit. 



