88 



Whetlier such an effect will be produced or not depends evidently 

 on the inner structure of these icebergs, their relation to the bulk 

 of the ice and their relation to the excited molecules. If the ice- 

 bergs formed around a substance do not fit into the structures of 

 water then the final result will be a disorder which will interfere 

 with triplet excitations. Such disorder seems to be created by 

 mono- and polyvalent alcohols. As mentioned before, no triplets 

 are formed in ice containing 5-10% glycerol. Similar is the effect 

 of monovalent alcohols, such as methanol or ethanol which in 2% 

 concentration completely prevent the formation of triplets. There 

 is a remarkable parallelism between the action of these alcohols 

 on triplet excitations and their biological activity, suggesting that 

 this latter may be due to their interfering with E*. Two per cent 

 ethanol temporarily stops most of the manifestations of life (Gad- 

 dum); it completely abolishes triplet excitations in vitro. Rho- 

 damin, for instance, frozen in 2% alcohol, shows only an intense 

 orange fluorescence, and no red phosphorescence whatsoever. A 

 0.2% alcohol concentration in our body juices make us heavily 

 drunk. In vitro it cuts down the long life of the excitations in 

 acridine yellow, while the long-life induced in acridine orange by 

 cortisone is eliminated even by 0.06% ethanol. In rhodamin 0.2% 

 ethanol turns the phosphorescence partly into fluorescence. Lower 

 concentrations of alcohol which only cheer us up and relieve us 

 of our inhibitions increase phosphorescence, making the triplet 

 state less stable. Also the poisonous action of methanol, which 

 cannot be due solely to our inability to oxidize it, is reflected in 

 these experiments. The long-lived excitation of acridine orange 

 in presence of glutathione, which is fairly insensitive to 0.6% 

 ethanol, is cut down by mere traces of methanol; the triplet state 

 of chlorophyll is disturbed by ten times smaller concentration of 

 methanol than ethanol. Equally sensitive is the long-lived excita- 

 tion of riboflavine, stabilized by glucose. 



Results of the attemps to lengthen the lifetime of excitation are 

 summed up in Table II which shows two points: extension of 



