CATALYSIS AND BIOCHEMICAL PROCESSES 227 



was also noted that all of these compounds in sufficient 

 concentration caused precipitation in the press-juice, and 

 that the orders of relative precipitating effectiveness and 

 anticatalytic action were the same; this order is also 

 that of relative narcotic action. This parallelism 

 between precipitating action and narcotic action recalls 

 Claud Bernard's hypothesis that a partial coagulation 

 of protoplasmic constituents is the essential condition 

 of narcosis/ With the living cell, however, much lower 

 concentrations are required to stop fermentation than 

 with the enzyme solution, so that the parallel between 

 the inactivation of the structureless enzyme solution and 

 the inhibition of fermentation in the Hving cell is not 

 complete. This difference may indicate the importance 

 of the vital organization as such, or it may depend on the 

 presence of special compounds (Kpoids) in the living cell. 

 Warburg and Wiesel found, however, that dried yeast 

 cells (extracted with ether and acetone) exhibited a 

 well-marked fermentative action, which was arrested 

 by narcotic compounds in somewhat high concentrations. 

 Meyerhof found a closely similar anticatalytic action 

 of the same compounds in solutions of yeast invertase;^ 

 and in this case also the effect was associated with a 

 precipitating action; similar observations on oxidase- 

 containing tissue-extracts have been made by Battelli 

 and Stern.^ Vernon^ also observed a general inhibitory 

 action of narcotics on tissue-oxidases ; the effect was 



^ Claude Bernard, Leqons sur les Anesthesiques et sur rAsphyxie, 

 Paris (1875), P- 154. 



* Meyerhof, Arch. ges. Physiol., CLVII (1914), 251. 



3 Battelli and Stern, Biochem. Zeitschrift, LII (1913), 226. 



4 Vernon, Journal of Physiology, XLV (191 2), 197. 



